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of the 


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Endowed by Che Dialectic 


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THE LIBRARY OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF 
NORTH CAROLINA 
AT CHAPEL HILL 


ENDOWED BY THE 
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SOCIETIES 


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This book is from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill a 


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Edited by 
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PUBLISHED BY me 


3 OPPORTUNITY 


JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE 


© 


NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 
17 MADISON AVENUE NEW YORK 


CSERGENIENG 


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8 UI a a 
SEIS ISTST SEES EIEIO DIDCOT III 


Copyright, 1927 
By OPPORTUNITY 
Journal of Negro Life 


of Three dollars per Copy fe 


—————e 


years" 


Library, Univ. of 
Nosth Carolina 


FOREWORD 


IG * A DOL—Ot 


F “every life has pages vacant still whereon a man 
may write the thing he will,” it is also true that in 
many little-considered lives there are pages whereon 

0] matter of great interest has-already been written, if 
the appraising eye can only reach it. 


So with the recently developed discoveries of the wealth 
of material for artistic and intellectual development in the 
life, manners, and customs of the Negro and his unique and 
all-too-frequently unappreciated and unasked contribution 
to our American self-consciousness. 


This challenging collection focuses, as it were, the ap- 
praising eyes of white folks on the Negro’s life and of 
Negroes on their own life and development in what seems to 
me a new and stimulating way. 


Great emotional waves may not be stirred by taking cog- 
nizance of the performances of Negroes in art and literature, 
but faithfulness to an ideal of proportion or fair play makes 
us uneasy lest through ignorance we miss something by stray- 
ing into the tangles of prejudice. 


Most of us claim to recognize Miss Millay’s thought that 


“He whose soul ts flat, the sky 
Will fall in on him by and by.” 


and will follow with zest the explorations of appraising eyes 
which have been made available to us in attractive form on 
these pages. 


L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD. 


OPPORTUNITY 


JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE 


CHARLES S. JOHNSON 
COUNTEE CULLEN 
NOAH D. THOMPSON 
DOROTHY STEELE 
GWENDOLYN BENNETT 


Organ of the 


National Urban League 


L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD, President 
WILLIAM H. BALDWIN, Secretary 
LLOYD GARRISON, Treasurer 
EUGENE KINCKLE JONES, Executive Secretary 


17 MapIson AVENUE 
New York CITY 


FOREWORD 


my ROUUCTION— By. Charles S. Johnson2 ¢ sn 1] 
ee oN A story by Arthur HuftiPausct +2. et 15 
eee ieROAD ONE DAY, LORD-—By:Paul:Greens. 25 
See ehocm by MaciV. Cowdery te he 26 
DIVINE AFFLATUS—A Poem by Jessie Fauset.cc:cccccucsccucmnnnceencn yo! 
GENERAL DRUMS-—A Story by John Matheus...cc ccc eee 29 
ee et as) lias ecteckinger as ee ate eS re ly 35 
REQUIEM—A Poem by Georgia Douglas Johns0tccccccccccceecceeccccc 35 
PORECEOSURE—A Poem by Sterling A. Browncceceso- 0 36 
Bee R-=A Poem by Langston’ Hughes... sce 36 
fe DONES——A Poem by E, Merrill Root... we 36 
EIGHTEENTH STREET—An Anthology in Color by Nathan Ben Young... o/ 
JOHN HENRY—A Negro Legend by Guy B. Johns0tnoeccccccccccccecceceeecccec. 47 
THINGS SAID WHEN HE WAS GONE—A Poem by Blanche Taylor 

ee oie ese et er ere Fs ea i aio! 
APRIL IS ON THE WAY—A Poem by Alice Dunbar Nelson... wy 
THE FIRST ONE— A Play in One Act by Zora Neale Hurston... 5 
THIS-PLACE—A Poem by Donald Jeffrey Hayes cecccccccccccccccccccccecccc $7 
Bee OL MS—By Countee Cullen 58 
NEW LIGHT ON AN OLD SONG—By Dorothy SCALDOrOUch eae eee 59 
LA PERLA NEGRA—By Edna Worthley Underwood... 60 
THE NEGRO OF THE JAZZ BAND—Translated from the Spanish of 

Pesce vimalayerriaby;Dorothy Peterson See) oe 63 
Beet ICY Aptocms by eAtnaBontemips... ee nc 66 
TO CLARISSA SCOTT DELANY—A poem by Angelina W. Grimke............... 67 
JUAN LATINO, MAGISTER LATINUS—By Arthur A. Schomburg.............. 69 
AND ONE SHALL LIVE IN TWO—A Poem by jonathan Ele Brookseaee 72 
pte) Lely sete om Nicatley te a MA oe a 78 
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE AT PILGRIM’S POINT—By Elizabeth Barrett 

Sco W 0 pie eeepmnenertere seme We OOS a ey 78 


THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RACE PREJUDICE—By Ellsworth Faris 9 
FACSIMILES of Original Manuscripts of Paul Laurence Dunbaf renee... 95 


SYBIL WARNS HER SISTER—A Poem by Anne Spemee ia ceeennnnnnnnnenrnneenann 


SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE AMERICAN RACE PROBLEM— 
By Eugene Kinckle J 0m €8.eeeneeennvvonnneninenrennintnneannintnt 


ARA BESQUE—A Poem by Framk Horne. escccssntuemmenmanmeeatnenmmtnmtststis iit 
PHANTOM COLOR LINE—By T. Arnold Hilt ecmeresmennemnnnnencamnaan 
THE CHANGING STATUS OF THE MULATTO—By He Bekeutce= = 
SUFFRAGE—By William Pickers nna ecnene meee nner 
CONSECRATION—A Poem by Lois Augusta Cugla tan ncnccccencennnnnnnnnnmmnn 
UNDERGRADUATE VERSE—Fisk Unive rsityQceecceccccccecsnsscsncnsemenememmneneninste 
OUR LITTLE RENAISSANCE—By Alain L0cKe.ececcccesceeerecneemememnmnanneecae 
MY HEART HAS KNOWN ITS WINTER—A Poem by Arna Bontemps..... 
RACIAL SELF-EXPRESSION—By E. Franklin Frazier. -----ceneenn 
OUR GREATEST GIFT TO AMERICA—by George S. Schuyler 
EFFIGY—A Poem by Lewis A Lexamde tn eeecececcececececseerceescnernettnemenetnemetnnittennssetnats 
THE NEGRO ACTOR’S DEFICIT—By Theophilus Lewis... sce 
TWO POEMS—By Edward S. Silvera. on ccnc-ceeesensnsnsnennuenuenemnmnenaaeintin : 
DUNCANSON—By W. P. Dabiney.rcceccrnseecscncicnnetntntnnnmninntensetennmanmitamnctinite 
YOUTH —A Poem by Frank Forme. cecerececeessneneenstrnnnnmeereenerementennnnentenemnsonaneats 
THE PROSPECTS OF BLACK BOURGEOISIE—By Abram Harris 
TO A YOUNG POET—A Poem by George Chester Morse. ececcccmencnencernrmenntins 


A PAGE OF UNDERGRADUATE VERSE—Shaw University, Lincoln 
University, Tougaloo College, Howard University. ennccneennnnnnnnnnnnnne 


VERISIMILITUDE—A Story by Jotun P. Davis. ninecccccenecccsementntnmeneenneenenenettnie 
MRS. BAILEY PAYS THE RENT—By Ira DeA. Rein ececccecceececeneenennnn 
A SONNET TO A NEGRO IN HARLEM—A Poem by Helene Johnson... 
TOKENS—A Story by Gwendolyn Bennett. aecccc-cccecncnertnnteeneuentnenammmrnaateiis 


A PAGE OF UNDERGRADUATE VERSE—Tougaloo College, Cleveland 
College of Western Reserve University -ncoccccceeennnnennnnnncmmmmcaens 


THE RETURN—A Poem by Arma Bomtem ps... eo--vccceceecmeenmrresusnenmnanenenememmmenesssarsre 
T—By Brenda Ray Moryck.cacnneccssnneennintnnerntmnintitttn tt tte 
A GLORIOUS COMPAN Y—By Allison Davis.ececccccccececececnemenemmsnerneenemmnmneatnte 
A STUDENT I KNOW—A Poem by Jonathan H. Brooks. ceeeeenennnnnennnmne 
AND I PASSED BY—By Joseph Maree And rew..eccecccccnecrenscees sneer 
WU HO'S WO i re a are ra 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


CAURD 
OER eS A Ay SS Ag aera eee Ree Oe ee ne On ..By Charles Cullen 
LP IOOUTRY OREO es ele Ss ee coe tee ee neo ieee eo By Charles Cullen 
PCL) aM T@ Sei Il @ Ole Gates eet eee eee oe temas By Richard Bruce 
Dey a OP eye DY A ALON LOU SLAs ee eae ee cn cates ett eer vnenienneneif cnt 14 
Drawing for On the Road One day, Lord—By Aaron Doug as..iescscsoceceeenncsnene 22 
Brawiientor General Drums—by Aaron Douglas..2 28 
Reproduction of African Sculptures from Barnes Foundation... eccsecsssssecceeenue 76 
Papen drawing ot Phillis Wheatley—-By W. EB. Braxton. 78 
Illustrations for Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point—By Charles Cullen..................... 80 
MCU ill Oe VED ATOMN VON RUCK SCCSC ICTs yee ace ec acessories gente 88 
mepen drawing of BH. K. Jones-——By Francis Holbrook ioc i cence tte ai. 
mroaur drawings for Mulattoes—-By Richard Bruce cn ccc eececceseccseeeescecseseeutmenntaceeiee 103 
Pree 0 0c VC fidglcce OU MCi mee oe ee ee 116 
oo eee iaiteee st abip: se icy way B Ya) Weg 1p ARI ae RU fer a cE 130 
my arawing from Copper Sun—By Charles-Culbern. icc ccceecsncsccescesssnsenessesnesinenrsenencee 136 
CORD 
Illustrations used thru the courtesy 
of Arthur A. Schomburg 

ier emit trom: a painting by PV am: Dyk; dele cence sees arcane eneenneretnne 68 
Facsimile of privilege to print and title page of Dook Dy Latium eeeccececssmsemennee yA! 

Four paintings by Sebastian Gomez, the Negro of Spain: 
esis Breck tone O Ui [ipetee eee ree ree RS Cerf ca cca ergo erc 7s 
PIC CmOACTEC Srtaitbiiy == mameemtons meme mre ec Chae 2 ee sk 74 
RRLITAYAC WL ACEC: GILC CL(LO Lrg earn tre ee me ies oe erst Se ae 74 
Petremiminiactiater Once pt Olin ek nuee ts: 0) n ete | ee 75 
Facsimile of pamphlet of An Elegy—By Phillis Wheatley css esasssncemescceenmmeee 77 
A mezzo-tint of Ignatius Sancho from a painting by Gainsborough. ccsecsssesn 79 


Reproduction of a portrait of Francis Barber by Sir Joshua Reymolds.ccecceececmeooe 79 


el Will ge 
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J We) ty. 


A iH = _ ai om 


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A Drawing by Charles Cullen 


“It is better to walk 
Than to grow angry with the road.” 


An African Proverb. 


INTRODUCTION 


=p, I’ is only fair to rid this volume, at the beginning, of 
~ some of the usual pretensions, which have the effect of 
distorting normal values, most often with results as 
unfortunate as they are unfair. This volume, strangely 
) enough, does not set forth to prove a thesis, nor to 
cS Mee plead a cause, nor, stranger still, to offer a progress 
report on the state of Negro letters. It is a venture in expression, 
shared, with the slightest editorial suggestion, by a number of persons 
who are here much less interested in their audience than in what they 
are trying to say, and the life they are trying to portray. ‘This mea- 
surable freedom from the usual burden of proof has been an aid to 


spontaneity, and to this quality the collection makes its most serious 
claim. 


It is not improbable that some of our white readers will arch their 
brows or perhaps knit them soberly at some point before the end. 
But this is a response not infrequently met with outside the pages 
of books. There is always an escape of a sort, however, in ignoring 
that which contradicts one’s sense, even though it were the better 
wisdom to give heed. 


Some of our Negro readers will doubtless quarrel with certain of 
the Negro characters who move in these pages. But it is also true 
that in life some Negroes are distasteful to other Negroes. Following 
the familiar patterns, we are accustomed to think of Negroes as one 
ethnic unit, and of whites as many,—the N ordics, Mediterraneans; 
or Germans, Irish, Swedes; or brachycephalics and dolichocephalics, 
depending upon our school of politics or anthropology. The signifi- 
cance of the difference is not so much that Negroes in America actu- 
ally represent different races among themselves, as that there is the 
same ground, in dissimilar customs and culture patterns, which are 
the really valid distinctions between races, for viewing Negroes dif- 
ferently among themselves. The point, if it were important enough, 
could be proved about as satisfactorily as proofs in this field go, and 
with the same type of data. Beneath the difference, however, as 
must be evident, is the cultural factor which distinguishes one group 
of Negroes from another: the small, articulate group from the more 
numerous, and, one might even add, more interesting folk group; 
the unconscious Negro folk contributions to music, folk lore, and the 
dance, from the conscious contributions of Negroes to art and letters. 


The sociological confusion here has brought about endless literary 
debates. 


Accepting the materials of Negro life for their own worth, it is 
impossible to escape certain implications: It is significant that white 
and Negro writers and artists are finding together the highest ex- 
pression of their art in this corner of life. And, as Mr, Albert Jay 
Nock reminds us, an interesting person in literature is just what he 


& 


is in life. It is evident in many quarters that Negroes are being dis- 
covered as “fellow mortals,” with complexes of their own to be an- 
alyzed. With Julia Peterkin, Paul Green, Dubose Heyward, Guy 
Johnson, there has been ushered in a refreshing new picture of 
Negro life in the south. Swinging free from the old and ex- 
hausted stereotypes and reading from life, they have created human 
characters who are capable of living by their own charm and power. 
There is something here infinitely more real and honest in the at- 
mosphere thus created, than in the stagnant sentimental aura which 
has hung about their heads for so many years. 


The Negro writers, removed by two generations from slavery, are 
now much less self-conscious, less interested in proving that they are 
just like white people, and, in their excursions into the fields of letters 
and art, seem to care less about what white people think, or are likely 
to think about the race. Relief from the stifling consciousness of being 
a problem has brought a certain superiority to it. There is more can- 
dor, even in discussions of themselves, about weaknesses, and on the 
very sound reasoning that unless they are truthful about their faults, 
they will not be believed when they chose to speak about their virtues. 
A sense of humor is present.” The taboos and racial ritual are less 
strict; there is more overt self-criticism, less of bitterness and appeals 
to sympathy. The sensitiveness, which a brief decade ago, denied the 
existence of any but educated Negroes, bitterly opposing Negro dia- 
lect, and folk songs, and anything that revived the memory of slavery, 
is shading off into a sensitiveness to the hidden beauties of this life 
and a frank joy and pride in it. The return of the Negro writers to 
folk materials has proved a new emancipation. 


It might not seem to go too far afield to refer to the statements 
offered not infrequently in criticism, that the cultured Negroes are not 
romanticized in fiction as generously as the folk types. This has a 
distinctly sociological implication back of which is the feeling that a 
loftier opinion of all Negroes would follow an emphasis in fiction 
upon more educated individuals. The attitude is not uncommon in 
the history of other races and classes. For many years, Americans 
were affected by the same sensitiveness in relation to Europe, and 
even in the Southern United States, until very recently, the literature 
has been defensive and for the most part ineffectual. Aside from the 
greater color and force of life in those human strata which seem 
to have struck lightning to the imaginations of our present writers, 
it might be suggested that the educated Negroes, even if they are not 
yet being romanticized in fiction, are finding a most effective repre- 
sentation through their own comment upon the extraordinarily in- 
teresting patterns of Negro folk life to which they have intimate 
access. Or, perhaps, they have succeeded only too well in becoming 
like other people whom writers generally are finding it difficult 
enough to make interesting. 


The most that will be claimed for this collection is that it is a 
fairly faithful reflection of current interests and observations in 
Negro life. The arrangement of the materials of this volume follows 
roughly the implications of significance in the new interests men- 
tioned. The first part is concerned with Negro folk life itself. The 
vast resources of this field for American literature cannot be escaped 


even though they are no more than hinted at in this volume. There 
is here a life full of strong colors, of passions, deep and fierce, of 
struggle, disillusion—the whole gamut of life free from the wrap- 
pings of intricate sophistication. 

The second part sweeps in from a wider radius of time and space 


some of the rare and curiously interesting fragments of careers and 
art which constitute that absorbing field of the past now being re- 
vealed through the zeal and industry of Negro scholars. The garner- 
ing of these long gone figures who flashed like bright comets across 
a black sky is an amenity which has found root quietly and naturally 
in Negro life. 


A third division is concerned with racial problems and attitudes, 
and these are rather coldly in the hands of students. In these, there 
is the implication of a vast drama which the stories and the poetry 
merely illuminate. 


The fourth section might well be set down as the most significant 
of current tendencies—the direction of Negro attention inward in 
frank self-appraisal and criticism. The essays touch boldly and with 
a striking candor some of the ancient racial foibles. At frequent 
points they violate the orthodoxy, but in a spirit which is neither 
bitterly hopeless nor resentful. This is perhaps one of the most hope- 
ful signs of life and the will to live. And finally, there is a division 
which gives a brief glimpse into the intimate self-feeling of articulate 
Negroes. ‘These lack conspicuously the familiar tears of self-pity 
and apology. 


The classification is not a strict one, but it has a possible useful- 
ness as a guide through the varieties of expression to be found herein. 
There will be in one an abandonment to the fascination of a new 
life, in another a critical self searching, in one humor for its own 
sake, in another humor with a thrust; there will be stoical rebellion, 
self reliance, beauty. Those seeking set patterns of Negro literature 
will in all likelihood be disappointed for there is no set pattern of 
Negro life. If there is anything implicit in the attitude toward life 
revealing itself, it is acceptance of the fact of race and difference on 
the same casual gesture that denies that the difference means any- 
thing. 

This is probably enough about the contributions to this collection 
to let them take their own course. From the list of contributors are 
absent many names with as great reason for inclusion as any present. 
There were, however, physical limits to such a volume, with all that 
this implies, and, if there is, for those who must pass judgment, less 
merit in what appears than should be, some measure of this deficiency 
may be laid to the omissions. 


A spirit has been quietly manifest of late which it would be a 
gentle treason to ignore. Its expression has been a disposition on the 
part of established writers, scholars, artists and other interested indi- 
viduals, to offer to Negro writers the practical encouragement of 
those facilities which they command. ‘To this may be accredited 
among other things a share in the making of that mood of receptivity 
among the general public for the literature of Negro life. 


CHARLES S. JOHNSON. 


If you want to tell anything to Heaven, tell it to the wind. 
An African Proverb 


A DRAWING FOR JUMBY 
By Aaron Douglas 


JUMBY 


(To Doris) 
By Arthur Huff Fauset 


Jean-Marie 


Os EAN-MARIE tossed fitfully upon her bed of straw until a cock, crowing 
\\A B shrilly in the early morn awoke her with jarring suddenness. She raised 
Ce 

4G 


herself slightly, and fearing to open her eyes, clutched the wall of the 
ax) iS thatch-roofed hut, in order to steady her trembling body. 

SW (@L a) Feverishly she felt of her waist, her temples, her pale brown limbs, 
Dw igo) and her feet. She was puzzled. Assuredly there was something wrong. 
But where? She peeled open her eyes timorously. As the delicate brown lids slowly 
unfolded, she beheld the marvelous blue Caribbean, bobbing gently, playing a child’s 
game, as it were, with the rising sun. 

Jean-Marie shivered. Then from her throat came a tiny sound like the cluck of 
a hen. She stretched out full length on her back, and extending her clasped hands 
as far as possible from her body, she heaved a sigh of gladness. 

Thanks be to Jumby, a dream! Suppose, now, that she had awakened to find her- 
self bitten by a cobra, her limbs swollen double, and her pale amber brownness turned 
a hideous black! Just suppose Kasongo, the obeah man, could really put “nastiness” 
upon her, and she had awakened with Barbados Big Foot (elephantiasis), and thou- 
sands of tiny chiggers building their houses in the seams of her feet! 

Ah, the chiggers! They got everywhere, and into everything. You could not 
move for the chiggers. And how they did bite! She gazed upon a tiny red splotch on 
her arm, and scratched it ruefully. The more she scratched the more it burned. 

But the blacks did not mind the chiggers. Manja, sleeping over there in the 
corner, her almost naked body exposed to the caprices of brown scorpions, red and 
green lizards, mosquitoes, huge white ants, and roaches big as fingers .. . she did not 
mind the chiggers. Why, she had colonies of them, on her elbows, the sides of her 
hands, of her feet! The tops of her feet were live chigger-hives. But Manja did not 
mind... 

But then, what had she to do with these folk anyway! She did not look like them, 
she did not think like them. They were black; she was pale brown. Their eyes were 
constantly red, and the whites spotted with gelatine-like masses which affected 
their sight. Hers were clear like the Caribbean, and soft and brown like a chewink’s 
feathers. Instead of the brittle, harsh mat of hair which adorned their heads, rough 
almost to prickliness, her hair was black, and soft like velvet or silk. 

Jean-Marie leaped lightly from her bed, and glided to the door of the hut. Her 
tall slim figure was lithe like a leopard’s; her pale brown limbs moved with the grace 
of a beautiful race horse. She opened wide the door and gazed at the silent wonder 
of the island on which her home was situated. 

Mateka, the sacred mount, towered in the distance, some dark green knight, hiding 
his crest in a thin white mist. The sun, a streak of white in a pale blue sky, peeked his 
head over the mountain’s top. 

Jean-Marie noted the light green patches by the side of the mountain, where the 
blacks had cultivated their cane and their cotton, and the ro:ds, looking like brown 
streaks crawling up the great hill. She saw a dozen tiny sai‘-boats, much like geese- 


15 


16 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


feathers, tossing and bobbing on the Caribbean. Far in the distance, the native huts 
looked like cattle lying in the grass. Pee 

Frogs croaked. Crickets chirped. Tall palms, glistening in the sunlight, and 
looking like sentinels on the side away from the sun, bended and swayed to the occasional 
purring of the breezes. ; 

Far off a boy was yodeling. Somewhere a woman was hoeing and spading. Be- 
tween the pat-pats of her hoe, she sang snatches of lines from hymns taught by Wesleyan 
missionaries: 

“that Jesus doied fo’ me.” 


Jean-Marie remained some moments entranced. The spell was broken, however, 
by a sudden rustling of leaves in front of the hut. Out of the shrubbery, hobbled an 
old woman. She was black, and she wore a head-dress of red and gold which sparkled 
‘nthe sunshine. In her mouth was a clay pipe, in her right hand a gnarled stick which 
she carried for a cane. She wore a simple frock of brown and white, and her feet 
were bare. 

They called her Ganga the Good. 

“Hyeh, hyeh,” she fairly screamed as she perceived Jean-Marie standing in the 
doorway. Her cry aroused Manja and two other women who dwelt in the hut. 

“Hyeh, hyeh, lookit, lookit,’ Ganga cried again. 

She pointed to a spot on the ground, some distance away from the hut. Everyone 
rushed to see. 

“Da’ he,” she said. “Jumby comin’ dis toime roight hyeh. Sure, Oi knows you 
be’s de one sometoime, Miss Jean-Marie. Hyeh be’s it, roight where’s Jumby’s put 
ite 

Breathlessly, they crowded about the speaker who gazed intently upon an object 
on the ground. There lay the head of a white cock, its beak pointing to the corner of 
the hut where Jean-Marie slept. 

“Bukra,” shouted Manja, as she turned to Jean-Marie, a malicious look in her red 
eyes, “nas’iness shor’ git you dis toime. Laf? on an’ hop skippity-skip, but you kitch de 
chigger foot yit.” 

Blood mounted to Jean-Marie’s cheeks. 

“So! she exclaimed. “Mavbe if I have chigger foot, Babu trade my brown leg 
for your ugly black leg of an elephant!” 

“E-yah, e-yah,” screamed Manja, the whites of her eyes glistening with rage. 


“You bukra bitch. You no say nas’iness come ovah you.... You see... mebbe you leg 
swell like banyan; mebbe breasts look like jellies (cocoanuts) ; mebbe you guts rot an’ 
grow snakes... .wait an’ see... e-yah, e-yah.” 


Manja spat on the ground. She turned her back on Jean-Marie and rushed back 
to the hut, dragging her “big foot” behind her. 


Ganga looked at Jean-Marie and pointed to the cock’s beak. Then directing a 


warning finger towards the young girl she said, “Keerful, white chile . . . white cock 
mean badness .. . trouble pointin’ yo’ way.” 
Kasongo 


MANIA hobbled away from the ajoupa (thatched hut) of Kasongo the obeah man. 

Kasongo lived far back in the island, away from the village, away from the 
road, away from the sea. He had to hide himself. Were not the police everlastingly 
on his heels, trying to send him to Antigua for a good ten years’ stretch, with twenty 
lashings a week? 


But he had been too clever for the stupid police, Anyway, they were afraid of 


EBONY. AND TOPAZ 17 


him, afraid of his charms. Was it not a common saying that when Kasongo looked 
at a man thru his dead eye (the other eye was like fire), he was sure to be caught in a 
squall and die by drowning? or if you caught him whistling thru his hare-lip it meant 
loss of a dear one? 

When Flonza, the half-Indian wife of Francois died suddenly, even the police 
knew that Kasongo had baked a tarantula, beaten it into powder, and secreted it in 
Flonza’s food. And why? ... So that Francois might marry another woman. 

There was Mariel. He was secretly hated by Kasongo, because he had gone to 
the States and learned powerful obeah. Fool! Mariel should have known better 
than to drink whiskey out of Kasongo’s glasses. Everyone knew that Kasongo had a 
habit of slipping powders made from maggots, roaches and crickets in his whiskey. 
No wonder Mariel developed swelling in his right arm. What might have happened 
if he had not gone over to Martinique and consulted the most powerful obeah man on 
the island? ‘There they slit open his arm with a knife. His hand was alive with small 
black worms! Only the powerful medicine of the obeah man prevented them from 
eating him up alive. Instead, they came jumping out of his flesh like skippers from 
a piece of rotten ham.... 

Manja hurried to a sequestered spot under some tall banyan trees. She emptied 
the pocket of her dress of some charms she had recejved from Kasongo. There were 
strands of hair taken from the dead body of a man who had died from “bad man’s” 
disease (syphilis), some huge yellow-stained toe-nails, a clot of human blood, a dried 
chicken gizzard, and a rabbit’s paw. All had been dipped in a peculiar black powder. 

She bound these together in a piece of cloth torn from an old dress worn by 
Jean-Marie. Standing with her back to the sun, she held the bag over her left shoulder 
and mumbled these words: 

Be some Peter 

Be some Paul 

An’ be de Gahd dat mek us all, 
Spin ball, 

Spin jack, 

An ef she don’ do whut you says 
May I neber come back. 


Then she hastened to the hut where Jean-Marie lived. No one was about. She 
walked rapidly to the little plot of earth behind the hut, where every evening just 
before sun-down Jean-Marie tended her tiny garden. Near a favorite rose-bush Manja 
placed the charm on the ground, saying softly, 


Not for Manja, 
Not for Adova, 
Not for Merve, 
But only for Jean-Marie. 


Then she strode briskly into the hut and prepared for evening. 


Jumby 


[X the heart of the night Jean-Marie woke suddenly. Her eyes felt like blazing 
coals. 

Feverishly she gazed out on the starry firmament. The heavens were a curtain 
of soft velvet studded with diamonds. Moonbeams, the molten music of star-elfs, 
streamed into the hut, and played weird tunes in the sunken depths of her eyes. . 

Night, the black obeah man who sprinkles star dust in lovers’ potions, drugged 


18 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


her with his lures, and before she was able to recover from the magic spell of soft 
loveliness, her body was aflame with madness and longing. 
(Oh, Jungle Girl, with amber face, why do you struggle against a foe who 
draws you tight with bands like steel, and will not let you gor 
Oh, Jungle Girl, with eyes so pure, would you be ‘a jungle lover and scoff at 
jungle charms? 
Oh, Jungle Girl, with limbs pale brown, fly, fly to your destiny!) 
She looked in the direction of Manja and saw a dark bundle, half clear in the 
moonlight. Manja was asleep. 
Fever mounted in her body. The spell of love added to its flame until the pallet 
on which she lay burned like a bed of fire. 
She tried to cool the flame which was her body by crooning soft words to her 
lover: 
Babu, my Babuji, you will come to me. 
Say, Babuji, that you will come. 
Oh, my Babuji, come to me. . . come. 


Quietly, so that Manja should not hear, she murmured the words of a lovesong 
taught her in Trinidad by her African grandmother who had learned it from a wander- 
ing Zulu: 

U-ye-ze, u-ye-ze, 
Ma-me! U-ye-ze U-mo-ya! 
U-ye-ze, u-ye-ze, 
Ma-me! U-ye-ze U-mo-ya! 
Nakuba 
Se-ku-li— 
Ba-nchi la-ke ngo— 
Sha-da na-lo 
Ngomte-to! 
He cometh, he cometh, 
Rapture! Cometh the Strong Wind! 
He cometh, he cometh, 
Rapture! Cometh the Strong Wind! 
Let me have 
But his robe, 
And the marriage vows 
I will utter, 
By the law! 


Her body moved in rapturous rhythm with each note, She imagined herself in the 
arms of her lover, and that she was perishing in a fire of passion. 
_ Abruptly she ceased her chanting. Somewhere in the distance, she heard the faint 
din of beating. Gradually it swelled, then as gradually died away, only to swell again. 
Jean-Marie listened intently. She heard. E-yah! Jumby! 


Dum-a-lum-a-lum (pom-pom) 
Dum-a-lum-a-lum (pom-pom) 
a-Dum-a-lum-a-lum 
a-Dum-a-lum-a-lum 
Dum-a-lum-a-lum (pom-pom) 


E-yah! Jumby! 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 19 


Eh! eh! Bomba, hen, hen! 
Canga bafio te, 

Canga moune de le, 

Canga do ki la, 

Canga li. 


All of her body was aflame. Her eyes, her ears, her hands, and those pale brown 
limbs were like live coals of fire. Her bed had become a pyre. 

Like a panther pierced by the hunter’s spear, she leaped from her cot, and gliding 
across the floor of the hut, rushed out into the moonlight. Louder and louder the 
drums beat. Swifter the pale creature sped along her path. 

The way was tortuous and long. The Jumby Dance must not be within hailing 
distance of the police, and beside, members of the village would never have it said that 
they believed in Jumby. 

Jean-Marie sped over the dense underbrush. Her tiny feet tripped over the 
brambles and thorns with the lightness of a hare. Her brown body moved forward with 
the speed of a gazelle. 

Over hills tracked with sharp-pointed stones she traveled; down into valléys where 
the tangled grass lay hidden neath the waters of the swamp she trod, The gray mongoose 
darted from beneath her feet, and occasionally a huge field rat; but these she never 
saw. 

She came nearer the spot from whence sounded the monotonous call of the drum. 
Its tones sank louder into the depths of her heart. 

Dum-a-lum-a-lum 
Dum-a-lum-a-lum 

As she came out of a clump of forest, she suddenly espied a hut in a small open 
space close by the ocean. Tall cocoanut palms, and mango trees heavy ladened with 
fruit, sheltered it from the moon’s beams. 

The drumming stopped abruptly, as Jean-Marie appeared like some elfin sprite 
under the shadowed moon-light. 

She approached the hut. 

There, squatting on the ground, she perceived dimly the forms of nearly a score 
of men and women, many of them old. They were barefooted, and naked except for 
loin-cloths. All of them wore amulets, made from sharks’ teeth, dried frogs, and 
mummified rats. a 

As she came near to them, they rose, then bowing almost to the ground, they 
murmured, “Welcome, fair daughter of the kings. Welcome.” 

The door of the bamboo hut opened. A tall dark man appeared. He was be- 
decked in leopard skins, and with charms which rattled all over his body like many 
sea-shells. His body was smeared with the blood and brain of fowls, and his eyelids 
were daubed with white paint. 

Extending his arms towards Jean-Marie, he greeted her. 

“Welcome, oh daughter of the kings,” he said. “Many days and nights we have 
been waiting for you. At last Jumby has sent you forth. Enter with me, for this night 
we feast to Jumby, and celebrate with the dance of the leopard.” 

Jean-Marie clasped her hand in his, murmuring, “Babuji, my Babuji.... I have 
come at last... to you Babuji... at last I have come.” 

The head-man beckoned to the others to follow. Slowly they filed in couples into 
the hut. 

The room was nearly bare except for a small table which was alight with the 
unsteady gleam of ten candles placed around its edges. The flickering flames cast 
eerie shadows on the walls of the hut. 


20 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


In the center of the table was the body of a two-footed creature, half beast, half 
fowl, made from carcasses of small animals sewed together, into which had been stuffed 
the entrails of a cow. Mounted on its neck was the head of a white cock. A roasted 
pig, squatting with its fore-paws extended was to the left, and to the right was the roast 
carcass of a huge gray fat. 

These were the gifts to the Jumby. 

Jean-Marie and the company bowed in silence before the objects on the table, and 
formed around them in a circle. Soon the sputtering candles mixed their vapors with 
the stench of sweat and unwashed bodies. 

“Daughter of the kings,’ intoned the head-man, “soon Jumby will appear. 
You are his daughter, and the mother of the children of men. Pray guard your children 
well.” 

He bowed and disappeared silently into the darkness. 

As the door closed upon him, a drum suddenly sounded a warning note. Almost 
hidden, it stood with the drummer in a corner of the room. 

“E-yah!” shouted the drummer. “E-yah! It is Jumby.” » 

He commenced to beat slowly and gently, accompanied by the sound of rattles and 
castanets which another tall figure played upon. Softly the drummer began chanting 
an African melody as if imploring Jumby to enter the hut and partake of the feast 
prepared for him.... 

But Jumby does not appear. The drummer as if to coax him, quickens his beat, 
and raises his voice; then permits the song to die down to a low sob, while the measures 
of his beating become long and sustained. 

Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, the door opens. In the diminishing candle 
light it is difficult to make out the head-man, who clad in his leopard skins, silently 
enters the hut. But the drummer has seen the door open. He beats madly upon his 
instrument and sings: 

Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero! 
Beware! Beware! Beware! 

Jean-Marie steps out from the group and prepares to save her children from the 
ravages of the leopard, who by this time is seen almost creeping on all fours. Mean- 
while the crowd of dancers move slightly, now forward, now backward, keeping time 
with the drummer, and shouting. 

Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero! 

Jean-Marie dances nearer the leopard. She sings: 

Be careful, children. 
It is Jumby in the form of a leopard. 
Be careful! Mbwero! Mbwero! Mbwero! 

Her “children” scream and sing, all the while stepping backward and forward 
to the drum accompaniment. 

Slowly the leopard advances, sniffing the air, but at first ignoring the dancers 
and proceeding to the feast prepared for him on the table. He bows before the central 
figure, then proceeds to eat portions of the roast pig and roast rat. Suddenly he turns 
upon the crowd, and with his tongue extended and emitting terrible growlings, he 
throws them into convulsions of fear. 

__ Madder beats the drum. Wilder the hissing of the snares and rattles. More 
hideous the screams of the participants to whom the intoxicating effect of sweat, burnt 


tallow, and palm oil which is poured on the candles to make them sputter, bring a 
strange reality to the dance. 


Jean-Marie in the role of protector, steps in front of her children, and attempts to 
keep off the onslaught of the leopard. Her steps grow quicker, now forward, now 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 21 


backward. As she moves backward she motions to the children behind her to flee, 
calling out to them, “My children, Mbwero!” 

The participants imitate her steps, her motions, her calls. 

The leopard, swaying and measuring his step to the music of the drummer, dashes 
forward suddenly, and catches one of Jean-Marie’s children, whom he sets aside. Jean- 
Marie screams defiance, but he brushes her aside and snatches another child from her 
protecting embrace. 

One after another of her children he captures, until only a single child remains. 
Jean-Marie has become exhausted. Her steps become slower and feebler. She clings 
to the remaining child with fingers that are numbed with weakness and exhaustation. 
No use... the leopard seizes it also, and casts it aside to be devoured. 

Once more the drum beats wildly. Jean-Marie the mother has become a furious 
tigress. Her children are all dead. Must she die also? 

The leopard slowly approaches her. Jean Marie rushes to attack him, then retreats 
with backward steps. With claws protruding, the leopard rushes again, but the snarling 
Jean-Marie holds her ground, forcing him to turn back. The leopard prepares to leap. 
Jean-Marie seizes a club which rests on the table for the purpose, and lifts it high over 
her head in order to strike the leopard and slay him... . 

Behold .. . a silver gleam from the thatched roof-top. It is the flash of a cobra’s 
fang, which darts like an arrow straight into the pale brown arm of Jean-Marie. One 
shrill scream she utters, and falls in a heap on the floor. 

Now she seems to be swimming against an overpowering current. Her arms and 
limbs become numb and heavy. She feels a terrible swelling in her breasts. Her 
eyes are balls of fire burning, burning, burning. ‘There is a putrid smell in her nostrils, 
as of flesh rotting... and the sensation of myriads of swarming creatures. . 


Jean-Marie awoke from an age of slumber. Startled, she looked into the loving 
eyes of Ganga the Good. 

“But—but—the cobra—” she gasped, feeling her arms and limbs. 

“Po? chile,” whispered Ganga, “dat was mighty close call. All de jumbies sho’ 
dancin’ in you.” 

“But Ganga... my children... where are they?” 

“Da now, Bukra chile, you mus’ a seed all dat de night we fin’ you tearin’ t'roo de 
bush. Fever mos’ burn you to def!” 

She held Jean-Marie close in her arms. 

“Bukra chile,” she said softly, “ma po’ Bukra chile.” 

“Babuji,” whispered Jean-Marie, “my Babu-ji.” 


Drawing for ON THE ROAD ONE DAY, LORD 
by AARON DOUGLAS 


On The Road One Day, 
Lord z re ze 


BY PAUL GREEN 


SS IX striped figures on a blazing road, swinging their picks, and four 
= behind piling out the dirt with shovels. The white dust hides the 
blackberries in the hedge and the willow clumps are bent under its 
weight. ‘The heat of July shimmers across the wide land as far as the 
eye can see. The sweat pours down. It is the only dampness in the 
world for the ten mourners on the road. On a stump to the left a guard 
vapid, like a toad. The rifle in the crook of his arms keep alert, it 
watches, its muzzle watches like an eye, it threatens. Fall, picks, and heave arms! On 
the bankside to the right, another guard sits. He also is sleepy, drowsy. His rifle 
also keeps alert and watches, its muzzle threatens. The convicts dig with their backs 
to the guards, their faces set down the infinite stretch of road that disappears in a point 
on the horizon. Like so many soulless Puppets, they lift their hands towards the sky 
and bring them down, never any slower, never any faster. And as the picks strike 
against the earth with a thud, a husky desperate groan bursts from their baked 
lips. As rhythmic as the beating of their hearts the “hanh” accompanies the falling of 
the picks, carrying over long maddening hours of pain, carrying over until the sun 
sinks cooling in the west and the guard stirs and croaks, “Call it a day.” At times their 
voices are raised in a chant, level, patient, eternal and tough as the earth in which they 
dig. ‘Vhey don’t talk much, not so much. Talk breaks up the rhythm of labor, and 
that’s what they’re there for—labor, labor, working on the roads. Ninety days on 
the roads, ‘Lom Sterling, and sixty days for you, Bantam Wilson. ‘Lhe judge dropped 
his tobacco by his foot, rose and gave sentence. Disturbance of the peace. Assault 
with intent to kill. ‘hese niggers, these everlasting niggers, always fighting, always 
shooting. ‘lhey’ve got no sense, they’ll never have no sense. Give ’em the law, let 
’em feel it. Obedience, peace, peace. ‘his is the republic, these are the institooshuns. 
Land of our fathers. ‘his shall be a lesson. Sixty days. Ninety days. Dig, dig. 
Side by side they dig—Bantam Wilson and om Sterling. Musery has made them 
friends, sorrow companions. Bantam’s spirit walks unbroken, Sterling is crushed 
and under. ‘lhe feel of iron and abuse of tongues have broken him. His great should- 
ers are bent, his legs hardly sustain his weight, and his arms fling up the pick and let 
it fall hour after hour, day after day, witn slowly decreasing power. See, his face 
now bends above the lightless earth beneath. These are the children—hanh. ‘These 
are the brethren marching to Canaan Land. The guard on the right stirs in his 
sleepiness and beats at the flies with his hat. 


First Guard. Rain or shine the old dog flies stay with you. 

Second Guard. (Lighting cigarette and passing the package on to the first. ) 
And the dam’ muskeeters allus drilling for water. 

First Guard. Heigh you, Sterling, raise up that pick and let ’er come down. 
(The convicts dig on, accompanying every blow with their everlasting “hanh”, saying 
never a word.) You hear mer I say put some pep into that digging. 


23 


24 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Bantam. (After a moment—without looking around). He Sick) Ain teable 
to work. 

Second Guard. You bastard monkey runt, who’s talkinge 

First Guard. Hell ll be frozen ’fore you git this little digging done. (They 
lapse into silence again. The second guard stretches his arms in a yawn. 

Second Guard. Lord, I’m sleepy—sleepy. 

First Guard. Better leave her off a few nights. (The convicts with the shovels 
burst into a snicker. 

Second Guard. (Brutally, his voice sharp with hate.) Somebody begging for 
the little rawhide. (The four convicts terrified push their shovels deeper into the 
loose earth and pile it out). 

First Guard. I want water. 

Second Guard. The goddamned water boy’s fell in and drownded. (Standing 
up and calling). Water boy! Water boy! Heigh, water jack! Could a-been there 
and half way back! (The diggers begin a low working chant, pitiful and pleading. 
“Mercy, mercy,” it calls. ‘Water, water, give us some water. Where is it? Where is 
he? Where is the Great I Am, the Almighty God! Listen now, Jesus, while us gi’ 
you de call. Eigh Lawd, come wid de ‘sponse’ !” 

Convicts. 

I called my people—hanh, 

I said my people—hanh, 

I mean my people—hanh, 
Eigh, Lawd! 

First Guard. That’s right, sing him out’n the bushes. 

Second Guard. If it ain’t water it’s grub, ain’t that it’s something else. Bear 
down on them picks! Jesus Christ! (Sterling suddenly tumbles over and falls with 
his face flat in the dirt. A convulsive shudder runs through the other convicts, but they 
carry on their digging, never any slower, never any faster.) 

Convicts. 

I called my friends—hanh, 

I said my friends—hanh, 

I mean my friends—hanh, 
Eigh, Lawd! 

First Guard. (Springing up as he glances at Sterling). Heigh now, none o’ that, 
none o’ that! 

Bantam. (His voice rising in a whine). He sick, bad sick! 

First Guard. Better got cured fore he come here. (Marching up to the prostrate 
body). Git that face out’n the dirt! Git it out. (Whirling towards Bantam.) Nobody 
asked for your jowing. (Eyeing him). Want the little cat-tailsr 

Bantam. (Slinging his pick). Jesus, Jesus! 

First Guard. Snap out’n it, Sterling. 

Second Guard. (Getting a leather thong from his coat). Put a fire-coal on his 
tail and rise him. 

First Guard. Gonna step to it, Sterling? (But Sterling makes no answer). 

First Guard. He’s astall boy. Hell, he’s stalling! 

Second Guard. Damn right, he’s stalling. 

First Guard. This ain’t no party. 

Second Guard. Hell it ain’t no party! (He smoothes the thong with his hand 
and looks at the first guard). 

First Guard. Make ’em work, make ’em work—that’s right. 

Second Guard. Work, work—that’s what they’re here for—work! 

First Guard. Work—work—let him taste it. 


EBONY2AND “TOPAZ 25 


Second Guard. (Raising the strap above his head). ‘Thirty-nine, thirty-nine. 
We got our orders. (His voice coming out stronger now, more sharply). ‘The law, 
the law, it’s wrote in a book. (But still he holds the leather poised without bringing 
it down. A low murmur of horror rises among the convicts, growing into their chant, 
full of hate now, full of begging, but hopeless withal). 

Convicts, 

I called my sister—hanh, 
I said my sister—hanh, 
I mean my sister—hanh, 
Eigh, Lawd! 

First Guard. Hold her a minute, we’ll see, we'll see. (He goes up to Sterling 
and pokes him gently in the ribs with the muzzle of his rifle, but only the twitching 
back makes answer). 

Second Guard. Stick him in the collar. (He cuffs him gently in the collar, then 
with more insistence, at last with vehement roughness. A low whine is heard jis Fle’s 
saying something. 

First Guard. (Bending down). Goddamn it we'll see! 

Second Guard. And what song is he singing now? 

First Guard. Don’t say nothing. Moans and whines. He don’t say nothing. 

Second Guard. By God we'll see. Oh yes, he’ll talk. He’ll tell us a mouthful! 
(The chant grows fuller, the rhythm begins to shape the picks, to hold the rising and 
falling arms to their labor. The prayer for help, for peace, grows stronger—and with 
it the baffled will, the confused soul sends forth its cry), 

Convicts. 

I called my brother—hanh, 

I said my brother—hanh, 

I mean my brother—hanh, 
Eigh, Lawd! 

First Guard. Let him have it. (The second guard hands his rifle to the first and 
then looking around the world as if for a witness of justification, begins to beat the 
prostrate figure. ‘Again a shudder and the gust of a groan sweep the convicts. They 
drive their picks deeper in the ground, but never any faster, never any slower). 

Convicts. 


I called my mother—hanh, 
I said my mother—hanh— 

Second Guard. Six—seven—eight—nine—ten— 

First Guard. And now you'll work—and I reckon you’ll work. 

Second Guard. Eleven—twelve—thirteen—fourteen—(And the watchers in the 
skies cry blood, blood—earth, earth, sweet earth receive it. Keep it, or save it till 
the next harvest). 

First Guard. Oh yes he’ll work, and I reckon he’ll work. (The water boy 
bursts through the hedge at the left, stands terror-stricken a moment, and then dropping 
his bucket with a clatter tears down the road. The precious water sinks into the dried 
earth. Now they chant in hopelessness and the four with shovels wag their heads, their 
parching tongues protrude through baked lips. Ah, hope is no more—life is no more 
—death—death all around us. Grave, grave, swallow us up, hide us away, keep us). 

Second Guard. Fifteen—sixteen—seventeen—eighteen. (Now Tom Sterling has 
reached the end. In a last burst of life he staggers to his feet, his eyes glazed with 
madness). 

First Guard. Go to work. Look out—(The second guard turns to grab his rifle 
but Sterling is upon him. He strikes him in the face and beats him to earth, crushing 


26 EBONY AND TOPAZ Piss 


He stems of the early golden rod by the ditch and tearing the clumps of knotted lady- 
thumb). 

Sterling. (His voice coming out in a great animal scream). Hah—hah—hah— 
(He beats the guard’s upturned face with his fists). 

Second Guard. Kill him! Kill him! (The convicts sing on, now their chant 
rises louder, fresher. Revenge! Revenge! Hope he is not perished from us. Our 
arms are still strong). 

Convicts. 

I called my father—hanh, 

I said my father—hanh, 

I mean my father—hanh, 
Eigh, Lawd! 

Second Guard. Kill him! Kill him! (The first guard stands stupefied. Then 
“as if suddenly awakening he steps back, raises his rifle, and shoots Sterling through 
the back. He rolls over and lies with face upturned in the burning sun. ‘The second 
guard crawls over to the bank and lies stretched out in the grass, his body heaving and 
jerking with angry strident sobs. The first guard stands looking foolishly down at 
the dead Negro. The four convicts drop their shovels and hover together in a shudder- 
ing group, the six sing on, beaten—darkness, night—God sits high in heaven, his face 
from the Negro, his hand towards the white man. The poor and needy stretch their 
weak hands and the iron palings divide them). 

First Guard. The goddamned fool, he’s dead, dead! 

Second Guard. (Sitting up with a high laugh as he wipes the blood from his 
face). Had to kill him, we had to kill! (Peering forward). Dead as a fly. (With 
a sort of wild sob). This ain’t right. They’s something wrong—something wrong 
here. 

First Guard. Sing, you bastards. Dig, you sons of bitches! (And the body hes 
still. Once it knew swiftness, legs that ran by the cabin, played in the cornfield. Eyes 
that knew starlight, knew moonlight, as was said in the song. ‘Tongue that knew 
singing! And I lay this body down. In the cool hedge the fly says “zoom.” And a 
buzzard wheels by the flat disc of the sun. And they dig and they sing. O earth, give 
us answer! Jesus hear us!) 

Convicts. 

I called my Jesus—hanh, 

I said my Jesus—hanh, 

I mean my Jesus—hanh, 
Kigh, Lawd! 


DUSK 
By MAE V. COWDERY 


Like you 

Letting down your 

Purpled shadowed hair 

To hide the rose and gold 

Of your loveliness 

And your eyes peeping thru 
Like beacon lights 
In the gathering darkness, 


BBO Nor AN Dei O PAZ 


DIVINE AFFLATUS 
By JESSIE FAUSET 


Tell me, swart children of the Southland 
Chopping at cotton 

In the sandy soil, 

W hat do ye dream? 

W hat deeds, what words of heroes 
Leaven and lighten up 

Your toil? 


Know ye of L’Ouverture who freed a nation? 


Heard ye of Crispus Attucks, 

Or of Young? 

Does fiery Vesey 

Stir the spark within ye, 

Or Douglass 

Of the rare and matchless tongue? 
That Washington 

Who moulded a Tuskegee— 
Does he inspire ye? 

Does brave Moton thrill? 

Mark ye Du Bots 

That proud, unyielding eagle, 
Beckoning ye higher than the highest hill? 


But the swart children 

Of the Southland 

Stopping to dash the sweatbeads 

From dull brows, 

Answer: “These names 

Mean nothing to us, 

They, nor the unheard causes they espouse. 
Only we know meek Jesus, 
Thorn-encircled, 

Broken and bleeding 

In his Passion’s totls; 

And Lazarus 

Sharing crumbs with dogs; 

And Job, | 
Potsherd in hand, a-scraping at his boils! 


27 


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A drawing 


_ GENERAL DRUMS 


By JOHN MATHEUS 


Pye HE drums were beating incantation over the tops of the pines, through 
<7 the witching moss festoons of oily-leaved magnolias. The throbbing 
Sala tones hugged the low earth, too, like the sultry heat beneath the Southern 
§ moon, beguiling men from normal ways of thinking. Little fears lurked 
2S} in hallucinating shadows, unnamed trepidations and bold, brazen dread. 
A 27 Memories came thumping, drubbing, rubbing the soft, somnolent night. 
The drums caught Charles Pringle in their tentacles, as he stumbled along Yazoo 
road, his wide-toed army shoes kicking up yellow flakes of dust. War came to engulf 
him in all the menace of its terror. Again the boom of 75’s, the tatoo of machine guns, 
the shriek and whine of shells. Startled in him was that latent impulse to flatten his 
trim form into the earth, color of khaki, color of him. 

The silence and the loneliness coveted his composure, envied his anticipated hap- 
piness. Out from them leaped the sullen drumming. The weird opalescence was 
filled with ghostly armies. They came even though he shut his eyes, transcending 
material vision. So many things he remembered and Jimmy Spiles, handsome, yellow 
Jimmie Spiles, white teeth flashing, curly hair awry. 

But Jimmie was dead in France. He knew that. 

The moon was a golden chandelier and its light was argent, silvering the memories 
of the many times he had dreamed of just this hour, when he should be walking down 
Yazoo Road to Malissy’s house, alone, the only suitor now for her olive brown hand. 

Up from the shadows of tall trees and fronded shrubs, loomed faint, familiar 
outlines—picket fence, shining white, triangle of rambling roses, pyramid of japonica 
bush, the high, flat-roofed porch and ancient house with wide weather-boarding, 
planed by slaves with their hands. Time by way of wage for that unrequited labor 
had swept away the old master and his clan, had left the heritage in plebian black 
hands emancipated. 

That reckoning had been settled long ago; two wars had devastated since then, 
spreading the oblivion of changing interests over rancorous feelings. And now Charles 
Pringle was coming back on an August night, when the moon was full. 

He was not the same trifling, unsophisticated plow boy of the Yazoo bottoms. He 
had seen much of the world in eighteen months and the vision had made him wise 
and cunning. Inoculated with the virus of murder by hard-boiled second lieutenants 
in bustling cantonments, where healthy, human animals were trained to kill, then 
thrown on the firing line, the very fibre of his being had been branded by it all. One 
torturing, inerasable memory, standing out in bold relief, had sensitized chords of his 
nature which the echoes of the drum beats touched to responsive vibrations—wild 
drum beats, pounding in the night! 

Malissy, herself, came to the door when he knocked, standing before him, graceful 
as a magnolia, with its ivory-petaled flowers blooming. 

“Charlie Pringle! Charlie Pringle!” she cried, giving vent to the demonstrative 
quality of her African blood. 

He remained on the threshold, twirling his over-sea cap in his big hands, grinning 
and joyous to hear her mocking bird voice echoing his name. 

Then she burst into tears, into hysterical weeping, summoning forth her gray- 
haired squaw-faced grandma. 


29 


30 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


“Laws a-mussy, what 7s agwine on hyah,” she spluttered. 

Seeing the familiar face of Charlie Pringle in unfamiliar clothes, she stopped, 
surveying him from head to foot. 

“Howdy, chile. Yo’ back heah! De Lawd allus teks de righteous an’ leabs debils 
tuh repent. How yo’, sone Come in. What yo’, ca’in’ on fo’ dat away, Malissy?” 

“But—but—granny, yo-—Ah can’t help it. Po’ Jimmie. To think he might 
be here too an’ we—we—jes’ married.” 

“Twas de Lawd’s way, honey,” soothed the old-woman soberly. ‘Yo’ aint been 
home yit, Charlie?” 

“Naw. Don’t spose pap’s special anxious ’bout seein’ me, sence ah knocked him 
out the night ’fo’ we all lef’ fo’ camp.” 

“Yo? ought to been ashamed, strikin’ yo’ own pappy.” 

“Tt were de licker that made me done it,” said Charlie, hanging his head, hypo- 
critically. 

“Charlie, what did he say? What did he do? How did it happen?” questioned 
Malissy, eyes swollen with weeping. 

“Dey say ol’ man Spiles don’ gone nummy in de haid, sence he got dat ar deespatch 
fum Washington, tellin’ him ’bout Jimmie bein’ kilt. He was br’r Spiles onliest 
daughter’s son. Po’ chile! Po’ chile! Hit’s turrible—lostin’ he’s girl when Jimmie 
was bo’n, dough what evah buckra man war Jimmie’s daddy, don’ gi’ de ol’ man a 
pow’ful heap o’ money. Didn't he done built him a new cabin? Wha’ he git de dollahs 
fo1do) ate 

The gossipy reminiscence of old age would have wandered on and on, if Malissy’s 
sharp voice had not broken in. 

“Granny, let him talk, let him tell nea 

Charlie Pringle began his story with the sneaking satisfaction that he could com- 
mand attention now, that he was important because he held a secret and no one should 
ever know that secret, unless he willed to tell it. 

“We all lef? No’folk sudden one night ’bout ten o’clock. Come ’roun’ woke us 
all up an’ down tuh de wharf we went. Jimmy jokin’ an’ laughin’ lak he always 
was.” 

Malissy sighed and sobbed afresh. 

“We was sick pretty near all de time goin’ across de watah. Sich waves and 
hearin’ shootin’ at submarines. 

“When we all landed we stood around half a day—pourin’ down rain, waitin’ 
to git somein’ t’eat. Then they took us tuh de woods whar we camped and drilled 
some mo’. In about two weeks we broke camp, took freight cars. We rid all night. 
De nex’ day say we wasn’t in them trenches! 

“Timmy sho’ war skeert,” he eyed Malissy covertly. 

“Then one mo’nin’ dey tol’ us tuh get ready—we was goin’ ovah de top.” 

He went into the details of the military manoeuvers while the two women listened, 
trying to comprehend the technique of the art of killing. 

“Dat white man blew his whistle an’ ovah we went, yellin’, screamin’. [I dis- 
remember anything mo’ ontell ah saw Jimmy fall—bullet hit him in de haid.- He 
never said nary a word, jes’ lay there a-jerkin’ and—” 

He stopped short. A breeze from the woods bore the beating of the drums. 

“Tha’ ’tis. Jes’ ez Ah was sayin’, ol’ man Spiles beatin’ fo’ Jimmy, gone nummy 
in de haid.” 

“Hunh!” ejaculated Charlie, rolling his eyes, “Ah mus’ be goin’ now. Guess pappy 
mataas glad tuh see me aftah so long. Ah’ll be back tuh tell you’ mo’, bout tuh-morrow 
night. 


co 


EBONY JAND< TOPAZ 31 


Malissy was too weak to move. Her grandmother escorted their visitor to the 
door. The moonlight shadowed his form, doggedly treading towards town. 

The returned soldiers were all heroes in the eyes of Negro town. The bravado 
and loquacity of Charlie Pringle even found favor in the sight of his grieved and 
mistreated parent. He forgave the prodigal and enjoyed basking in the glow of his 
son’s present greatness. 

Overgrown black boys from all sides flocked into town, strutting in khaki and 
putees, never to look upon life again as in the old days. 

There was a mass meeting in honor of the soldiers’ return in Ebenezer Baptist 
Church, where speeches were made and ice cream was served. Then until wee hours 
of the morning a dance swayed in K. of P. Hall with raucous blare of string and wind 
instruments. 

Charlie Pringle did not go to the church, but he was present at the dance, that is 
he was, until an old man entered, shuffling his big feet over the smooth floor, peering 
and peeping into people’s faces with queer, bloodshot eyes, filmed with watery scum 
of weakness. He was an eccentric old man, with the face of a black Punch, long, 
beaked nose and under lip projecting. He apologetically elbowed through the crowd, 
showing toothless, blue black gums. 

The older Negroes addressed him in skirting, awesome tones, “Howdy, Gen’ral 
Spiles.” 

The younger folk, with their passions mounting in the dance’s revelry, paid him 
little thought. 

He began to talk loudly in a cracked, squeaking voice: 

“Any yo’ all seen Jimmie. Yo’ know Jimmie, mah po’ gran’son, Jimmie Spiles. 
He done aint come back. Wha’s ’at Cha’lie Pringle. Ah wants tuh ax him ’bout 
Jimmie. Yes, Ah was a gen’ral in de Union A’my, fit in de battle 0’ Vicksburg, 
beatin’ drums, beatin’ drums—callin’ up speerits tuh hep us—beatin’ drums—” 

This was why Charlie Pringle went out the back door and some minutes later 
entered Negro town pool room, with its sawdust box spittoons and cabbage smelling 
“eatin’ house” across the hall. 

September passed and October came. Charlie Pringle found himself on many 
nights sitting on Malissy’s porch. She, with sad brown eyes; he, with cunning in his 
gaze. 

Yo’ nevah wan’ tuh lissen tuh me,” he was protesting one night, “less A’hm 
talkin’ bout Jimmie Spiles. Always Jimmie.” 
| “Well wasn’t he my husban’e” 

“An’ ain’t he dead, too?” 

“Not in mah heart,” said Malissy rising. 

“But, but Malissy, Ah—Ah laks yo’.” 

“Go ’way, Charlie, an’ yo’ his frien’ too.” 

He grabbed the girl in fierce desire and kissed her. 

The sting of her strong, brown hand still burned on his cheek, when he bolted 
away, muttering, “Always Jimmy. Jimmy livin’ an’ Jimmie dead!” 

The first armistice day celebration provoked great excitement in town. Prepara- 
tions were made to observe the anniversary of the occasion with fitting aplomb. The 
local leaders began to spread advertisments and work up spirit from the first of 
November. The editor of the town paper wrote patriotic editorials urging one hundred 
percent participation. 

Then came the question that always caused trouble. The colored ex-soldiers had 
asked to be allowed to march in the parade. They had also asked for the privilege 
of allowing some one to represent their only dead member, Jimmy Spiles, that he 
might march in memory of the departed. 


32 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Much discussion followed among the whites. There was some talk of allowing 
the Negro ex-soldiers and ex-stevedores to march in the rear. Some such request or 
suggestion had been made, but no answer was ever sent back. , 

Charlie Pringle had been picked out by the colored committee to represent his 
dead buddie. He turned quite ashy and vowed he never could do it, because, because.— 

So the colored people compromised and voted to celebrate at the K. of P. Hall with 
a monstrous Armistice Night Ball. 

When the eleventh of November came the public schools were closed, the stores 
and workshops. Main street, with its ramshackled line of one and two story buildings 
put on decoration of bunting and American flags. 

Promptly at ten o’clock the parade appeared. At the head marched the local 
band. The strident notes of Dixie floated in the morning breeze. The crowd rushed 
to the curb. Black faces peered as best as they could behind the barrage of their white 
fellow townsmen. 

Down the street marched the pride of the home town, dressed in their old doughboy 
uniforms and cheered enthusiastically by the patriotic watchers. 

Ten paraded for the boys who had not come back. They bore banners with the 
names of the martyrs written in gold stars. 

Then when everyone thought the parade had passed and the excited people were 
pushing toward the Court House Square where Lawyer Chester was to give the oration 
of the day, who should appear, togged in all the faded, ragged splendor of an old blue 
Union Army uniform, the trousers bagging down over the brogans, the coat buckled 
tightly around the middle, crowned by a bespangled hat with gold cords—who should 
appear but old man Spiles. 

He marched with a strange erectness and alacrity. His old beaked nose seemed 
to beget a subtle fierceness as some smouldering ember trying to flare up once more 
before going out entirely. 

He was beating a drum, making it reverberate with martial briskness and exuding 
a dignity worthy of all the faded tinsel. 

There rose a great shout of hilarious laughter. 

“Tta!) Hah Hal -Hol Hol» Hol Hels Hela er 

“Old man Spiles.” 

“Ffowdy, uncle. Howdy, General Drums.” 

But on he went. 

“Ah’m marchin’, yessah, Ah’m marchin’,” he quacked. “Ah’m marchin’ fo’ 
Jimmie, Jimmie Spiles. He war inde wah. Yessay, mah gran’chile ain’t come back.” 

General Drums was the crowning excitement of the morning. The Negro spec- 
tators looked with popping eyes. Charlie Pringle saw and dodged around the corner. 

“A Yankee uniform,” someone shouted. 

It was like waving a red flag before a bull. 

The jests became menacing. Somebody threw a stone, but the old man never 
wavered. 

The tone of the crowd became more and more hostile. 

“Tet that old darkey alone,” shouted a stentorian voice at the threatening crowd. 

It was Lawyer Chester himself, jumping from his Cadillac, his wavy brown hair 
brushed back from his high forehead, bearing his middle years with fresh vigor of 
early manhood. 

“Gentlemen, yo’ all wouldn’t harm a crazy old uncle, would your” 

A chorus of laughter greeted his query, good nature prevailed and the crowd drew 
back shouting, “General Drums, General Drums, where’d you learn to beat them 
there drums?” 

“Jes? bo’n dat away, chilluns. Yessah, bo’n wif a caul I was.” 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 33 


“What do yo’ mean, what are yo’ doing this for, uncle?” the lawyer turned to the 
old man. 

“Ah’m marchin’ fo’ Jimmy Spiles,” he answered simply, peering at his questioner. 

' He seemed then to recognize him, for he took off his hat and standing, gave the 
military salute. 

Lawyer Chester turned pale under his coat of tan. 

He reached in his pocket and put something in the old man’s right hand, encum- 
bered with drum sticks. 

“Take this and go home,” he commanded sharply. 

‘Schooled long in obeisance to the white man’s will, old General Drums doffed his 
hat again, but quickly put it back, and beginning to beat quite lustily, marched on, 
tramping in the dust a twenty dollar bill. 

“Ahm marchin’ fo’ Jimmie Spiles,” he quacked over and over again. 

Then Lawyer Chester reached for the money, swearing softly, and mopped his 
fine, high forehead and went away to the Court House Square to deliver his oration. 

Dusty Main Street was deserted and only the red, white and blue bunting glared 
and the flags of the United States of America fluttered in the near noonday sun. 

Charlie Pringle showed up at Malissy’s house, with his wheedling air and lecher- 
ous gaze, begging the girl to come to the Armistice Ball with him. She refused. 

“Go on, chile,” encouraged her grandmother. ‘Yo’ don’t do nothin’ but set ’roun’ 
here a-moppin’ and a-drizzlin’ roun’. Go out and enjoy yo’self one ebenin’.” 

So Fate played into Charlie Pringle’s hand. 

“Why don’t you fix up in your best, Malissy?” said he. 

“If yo’ don’t wan’ to go with me as Ah am, yo’ don’t need to tek me atall,” said the 
girl. 

He dared not say more. 

Malissy found the dance not at all in keeping with her sombre thoughts. In the 
first place she had come against her better judgment to a public dance when she innately 
shrank from the raw promiscuity of the males who presumed a familiarity she resented. 
Jimmie had been of a different sort. In the second place she mistrusted this persistent 
and audacious pursuit of Charlie Pringle and regretted yielding in this instance, for 
he might construe her acquiescence as privilege for irrefutable concessions. Then she 
had a general misgiving of his motives and reliability. 

But once in the Negro town and inside the crowded hall the intimate contact with 
the hilarity of the crowd and intoxication of the semi-barbaric music began to weave 
their subtle web around her. 

She had purposely refused to dress her best, fearing the consequences of attracting 
too much attention, holding back under the leash of her self imposed restraint. But the 
fact that she had been a war bride and was now a war widow, gave her unwittingly in 
the eyes of admiring beaux the advantage of prestige. 

Thus she was lead to dance with many partners, defying the furious scowls of 
Charlie Pringle and thereby asserting her none too complete surrender to his wishes. 

He chafed under the gnawing fire of jealousy. 

Always a creature of sudden caprice Malissy became smitten with inexplicable 
remorse. A desire to leave at once urged her to the act. There was nothing for her 
escort to do save follow. 

It was nearing midnight. The moon had come up late and was shedding its magic 
opalescence over the metamorphosed country. The road was deserted. The air felt 
refreshing after the crowded heat of the dance hall. Clumps of pines became visible 
by and by and the sweetly fragrant magnolias, 


34 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


“Malissy,” suddenly blurted out her moody partner, “are yo’ goin’ tuh marry 
nec” 

“No,” snapped Malissy. “How many times must Ah tell yo’. Yo’ posin’ as po’ 
Jimmie’s best frien’.” 3 ; 

“Oh, damn Jimmie,” snarled Pringle, wild, steaming fury rising in him. 

Malissy turned with heaving bosom, ‘Don’t ever come near me again, yo’ dirty 
viper.” 

E “Yo’re goin’ to be sorry fo’ that, Miss Uppity,” was the hot rejoinder. 

He grappled with the woman. 

“Yo're mine an’ Ah’ll have yo’ or Ah’ll know the reason why. Ah’ve done too 
much tuh git yo’. Yo’—Ah shan’t be outdid.” 

Malissy became calm and quiet in her terror. Interpreting her change as sub- 
mission he was melting from his fiery mood, when noises came loping out of the night, 
a vague whirring, indicating distance but no sense of direction. With increasing 
intensity it was closing in upon them. 

Neither stirred. Malissy felt a coldness clutching at her heart. Her fear of the 
man merged into the greater apprehension of the unknown. She felt the strong, lithe 
body pressed against her go limp. 

The approaching sound grew intelligible. It was the drums, that ungodly rhythm 
was the drums. And that shrill, cracked quavering was saying, “Jimmy Spiles.” 

And while the drums beat on there came a popping as of guns and Charlie Pringle 
saw the glare of the battle again and heard the roar of musketry. And behind them 
all loomed that inerasable memory which made him gaze ahead with glassy stare and 
point with trembling finger. 

As Malissy turned, a cloud passed over the moon, but she could see a form in the 
shadows and a face, her hysband’s face, dead Jimmy Spile’s face, pale, curly hair 
awry. 

Then Charlie Pringle’s courage snapped. 

“Save me, Malissy,” he screamed. Tell him to go away. Ah thought that bullet 
in the back killed him. It might a been a German bullet, but Ah couldn’t wait. I did 
it fo’ yo’. I swear tuh Gawd, Ah did it fo’ yo’. Ah’m leavin’. Tell him Ah’m 
leavin 24 

Footsteps approached and the drums. 

A voice cried, “Stop that damn beating, Spiles. What’s the matter with yo’.” 

The grey cloud drifted from the pallid moon. They saw the form of Lawyer 
Chester, hat in hand. 

Charlie Pringle’s face was working like an epileptic’s in a fit. 

“Beatin’ fo’ Jimmy Spiles. Bof us been in de ahmy.” 

“You skunk,” shouted Lawyer Chester, pushing Charlie Pringle from Malissy’s 
side, “I’ll give you three hours to be on your way out of Yazoo bottom. If I ever catch 
sight of your sneaking hulk yo’ll hang for murder.” 

Charlie Pringle stood rooted to the spot, abashed by the shadow of the hangman’s 
wee speechless, more terrified than if he had seen the accusing wraith of Jimmie 
Spiles. 

“General, I’m going to take you home.” 

“Yessah,” and the old man doffed his hat. 

“Come here, girl,’ he commanded and guided the prostrated girl with the gesture 
of a gentleman. 

He put her in his car. 

“No back firing,” he soliloquized, looking at his engine, “because I want to take 
you to your grandmother, girl, without any more disturbance.” 

And old man Spiles sat in the rear, hugging his drums. 


ls 


GULLAH 


By JULIA PETERKIN 


T is surprising to find that outside of the South, there is scarcely any 
yz acquaintance with the word “Gullah” although it stands not only for a 
\ large number of Negroes who make up most of the population along 
22 Our lower coasts but also for the quaint and charming patois which they 
(eee S8\) speak. 
pxGls aS There are many theories concerning the original home of these 
people, almost as many as there are ways of trying to reduce their odd speech into 
written words. Although some of them still have a distinct pride of race they know 
nothing of where they came from. I have heard people living in the Quarters here 
on Lang Syne Plantation boast that they who are Gullahs were bound to be better in 
every way than the people on a neighboring plantation who are Guineas. This belief 
was probably being handed down prior to the earliest days of slavery. 

These Gullahs may have been brought from Angola on the west coast of Africa 
by the traders who took them to market along with the gold and ivory transported from 
that rich country, and the word “Angola” shortened to “Gullah.” Or they may have 
been brought from Gallah on the African east coast along with cargoes of salt which 
was so valuable it was once used as money currency. But this question will never be 
settled. 


The human cargoes were brought to the rice and cotton plantations, and since 
they often out-numbered the white people in the ratio of hundreds to one, none but the 
house servants or body servants came into close contact with their owners, the rest 
having to learn to speak English from the white overseers or other white servants. 

A strange mixture of old English and French resulted, many of the words being 
utterly changed in tone and cadence and grammar. Harsh sounds were eliminated and 
this new speech slid easily, musically off the lips of the people who used it. 

After the Civil War and Freedom, most of the plantation owners moved away and 
the Negroes were left to shift for themselves the best they could, in the deserted rice 
and cotton fields. Generations have succeeded each other in the same isolated environ- 
ment. The same old customs, superstitions, religion, tradition and language have been 
faithfully handed down. And this language which is not easily understood except by 
a trained ear, is not only beautiful, but its whimsical words and phrases, its quaint 
similes and shrewd sayings are undoubtedly a permanent enrichment of American 
language and literature, 


REQUIEM 


By GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON 


I weep these tears upon my bier 
Another may not shed, 

For there is none save I alone 
Who knows that I am dead. 


35 


36 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


FORECLOSURE 


By STERLING A. BROWN 


Father Missouri takes his own. 
These are the fields he loaned them, 
Out of hearts’ fullness; gratuitously , 


Here are the banks he built up for his children— 


Here are the fields; rich, fertile silt. 


Father Missourt, in his dotage 
Whimsical and drunkenly turbulent, 


Guts away the banks; steals away the loam; 
Washes the ground from under wire fences, 
Leaves fenceposts grotesquely dangling in the air; 
And with doddering steps approaches the shanties. 


Father Missouri; far too old'to be so evil. 


Uncle Dan, seeing his garden lopped away, 

Seeing his manured earth topple slowly in the stream, 
Seeing his cows knee-deep in yellow water, 

His pig-sties flooded, his flower beds drowned, 


Seeing his white leghorns swept down the stream— 


Curses Father Missouri,impotently shakes 
His fist at the forecloser, the treacherous skinflint, 
Who takes what was loaned so very long ago, 


And leaves puddles in his parlor, and useless lakes 


In his fine pasture land. 
Sees years of work turned to nothing— 
Gurses, and shouts in his hoarse old voice, 


“Aint got no right to act dat way at all” 


And the old river rolls on, slowly to the gulf. 


DREAMER 
By LANGSTON HUGHES 
I take my dreams 


And make of them a bronze vase, 
And awide round fountain 


With a beautiful statue in its center, 


And a song with a broken heart, 
And I ask you: 

Do you understand my dreams? 
Sometimes you say you do — 
And sometimes you say you don't. 
Either way 

It doesn’t matter. 

I continue to dream. 


THE DUNES 
By E. MERRILL ROOT 


ET earth have her anctent way— 
Sun and sand and wind and spray— 

On the lonely dunes today. 
Tranipling silver dust of spumes 
Strides the wind: he wears the glooms 
Of vast purple clouds for plumes. 
Mightily Lake Michigan 
Hurls his white diluvian 
Wolves across the narrow span. 
Mournful grass like huddled sheep 
Cowers from the roar and sweep 
Of the waves and winds that leap. 
And the sand (that once was proud 
Rock) lies desolate and cowed, 
Broken to a level crowd. 
And one tree, a twisted gnome, 
Rises from the monochrome 


Leprous silver of his home. 


There in primal joy I lie 
Underneath a savage sky 

Where the pluméd clouds go by. 
Joyful on the trampled verge 

Of two worlds, I lie and urge 

In my soul thetr shock and surge. 
For my spirit wins elation 

And majestic affirmation 

Best from stormy desolation. 
There in primal loneliness 

Let me lie amid the stress 

Of the cosmic emphasis. 

Let me hear forevermore 

Life, of which I am the shore, 
On my body’s beaches roar! 
Not for me earth’s plenilune 
But the wild white crescent moon 


Of the beach that ends the dune! 


— ry 


—————————— 


EIGHTEENTH STREET 


(BIRMINGHAM) 
An Anthology in Color 


By NATHAN BEN YOUNG 


STROLLING MUSICIANS 


NIGHTEENTH Street hath music of its own. Some of it harks back to 
the far away Continental Africa, some of it is the new American music. 

Like strolling minstrels of old these rag-tag fellows appear on the 
Street from nowhere and depart as they come. One night it is the 
Kitchen Mechanics Quartet in the Bon Ton Drug Store in an impromptu 
e 27 progrom of bearded medleys and ballads in which the first tenor 
switches to baritone and the basso to lead ad. lib. But even in their rendition of ‘Sweet 
Ando-line” there is a quaint touch of something three hundred years or more old. 

Oh yes, ‘Kitchen Mechanics” because they cook, wait table, and chauffeur for the 

rich “white folks” on the Highlands. 

, Another night it is a strolling string band: a three string weather-beaten bass fiddle 
upon which a stumpy fellow of ginger-cake complexion plays, singing a “mean” tenor 
to boot; a red-brown guitar lashed to its ‘framer’ by a red. ribbon attached to neck 
and tail piece; a small fiddle handled like a tender baby by a fat black man. A block 
from them and they sound like a suppressed orchestra, a half block and you get the 
rhythm more pronounced, a choice place in the standing circle and you are a-tingle to 
a rondo of metallic harmony. 

Still another night and The Street is tuneless except for the rattle of the electric 
piano in the entrance of the Dreamland Theater. Along this thoroughfare of rustling 
mixtures for once music is absent. Then you walk into a crowd; in the center is a 
solitary black boy of wild eyes. In his hand is an ordinary piece of fishing pole bamboo 
about two feet long. 

“Play ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’,” someone requests; and without emotion 
the bamboo is raised to his lips and a tune flows like golden honey. It is crude, here 
and there a flattened note or lack of accidental, but that only makes it more seducing. 
And you stand by until this solitary Mozart of the street responds with “The Yellow 
Dog Blues,” “Da-da Strain” and “Maggie.” 

“Where'd he come from?” the person next to you asks, 

“Wetumka,” comes the answer. “Been looking for a job but can’t find one.” 

“Why don’t you see Hopkins—he’s always atta good musicians,” suggests the 
bystander. 

“I ain’t no musician,” grunts the boy. “Jes’ toots my flute for fun. It’s one I 
made—bored the holes with a hot iron and learnt to play it myself.” 

“Play the ‘Star Spangled Banner’,” comes out of the crowd. 

“What for?” challenges the man already talking to the flute player. ‘‘Ain’t we 
all standing already—and furthermore, I done heard too much of that tune in camps 
and over in France. An’ what good we get from fighting in the war? Play ‘Sweet 
Mama’.” 

But most common are the blind beggars with guitars or accordions, attended to 
by half-naked boys, and even girls in some instances. These children lift the collection 
in tin cups, asking everyone and even visiting the nearby places of business. 


37 


38 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Chief among these beggar boys is Fat Boy. He wears his job like a veteran and 
is the most difficult to get rid of without dropping a coin in his cup. His tactics never 
vary; just a dogged presentation without loss of words of poor-mouth. 

Where the other boys chided, “please help the blind,” Fat Boy simply said, “mister 
__mister—mister—” a hundred times if need be until you did something. 

“Mister—mister—mister” and in a soft yet persistent voice Fat Boy plagued and 
plainted until he caught your eye. One look into those round expectant eyes of a wary 
child and if you gave only a rebuff you would surely think about it later and regret. 
And the time he approached you fall a victim of Fat Boy’s tenacious subtlety, maybe 
saying to yourself that you gave to get rid of the nuisance. 


HENRY RUNROUND-— 18th Street Dandy _ 


[ts Henry Somebody—but no one knows what that Somebody is: Everybody knows 
Henry Somebody as Henry Runround. That last name is purely descriptive. 
Simply that for years Henry has been running around with the girls. 

Henry’s specialty is mid-night butterflies, ice cream fillies and baby vamps, to use 
by force those effete, commonplace labels. But that’s just what they are and that’s 
Henry’s main purpose in life. With his dapper self, with his smile and chivalrous 
air, with his affable voice and everreadiness to do the slightest favor, he finds much to 
keep him busy between the Peoples Cafe, Dreamland theater, Bon Ton Drug Store 
and intervening points. 

Henry always arranges to have a new sartorial touch about him, either a low cut 
sport shirt, or kitty-bow jazz tie, or hanging monocle, or flare-open vest, or any fad 
that’s not been overdone by the numerous lesser dandies. And don’t leave unmentioned 
Henry’s two gold teeth that he lets at you through intermittent smiles. 

Besides being an automatic, endless chain lover, Henry has an ambition. His 
ambition takes various shoots: News reporter, fireman on the railroad, soda jerker, 
and injuree minuteman. 

He may be all these things in a single week. He writes sporting items and acts 
as official scorer for the Palmetto Giants baseball games; the very next day you 
encounter him in blue striped overalls, blue cap and red bandana handkerchief swashed 
reune his throat, with a trimmed lantern in one hand and a pair of gloves in the 
otner, 

“What's the dress-up mean, Henryr” a friend greets him. 

“Firing for the Frisco—going out on Number 26,” coldly replies Henry. 

“Henry’s lying,” another fellow breaks in. “Henry wouldn’t carry the fireman’s 
dinner on salary. 

“Well, mister Know-all, come go and see. See if I don’t fire No. 26 out this 
evening. Come on!” Henry has started off, beckoning his accosters. 

“Oh, I get you Henry,” announced the first fellow, “you’re putting on a stunt for 
the masquerade ball at the Palm Garden to-night. We’ve got you Runround Henry!” 
And they laughed as the probable fireman ambled on through the crowded street. 

Nevertheless, they were not sure that Henry Runround or Runround Henry, which 
is just as good, was really firing or not. No one knew; Henry did so many things and 
had so much time to do anything, so why not a fireman? 

Well, when Henry wasn’t on his beat attracting the female and wasn’t writing up 
a ball game or serving in a rush as extra soda jerker at the Bon Ton, and wasn’t dressed 
up as a fireman, then there was a chance of him being in another role. The chance 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 7 39 


didn’t come often but always Henry accepted it. Accident orphan or expert injuree. 
On the first news of a street car accident or public disaster, Runround Henry made it 
there and made good use of a couple of handkerchiefs, his pen knife and his lugubrious 
look. A cash settlement was his favorite way out, 

Henry Runround—what an apt name for him to live up to! 


MADAM ANTOINETTE SANDAL 


© PARVENU— Eighteenth Street does not know of the word but it knows Madam 

Antoinette Sandal, it knows her cherry colored sedan, her Woman’s Crowning 
Glory Beauty Parlors, her beribboned Pekingese, her seven diamond rings on one hand 
and even talks of her bank balance in two down-town banks as running in five figures. 

The gold rush and the oil booms—to the Americans of color, hair and beauty 
culture is the mild equivalent. Washer-woman yesterday, maker of home-made hair 
grower today, and the Growmo Company, Inc. to-morrow. 

However, not all of the many hundred ‘entrepreneurs’ strike wealth in such quick- 
ness; only the lucky few. Madam Antoinette Sandal was lucky—except in the matter 
of husbands! Recently her third husband departed with his handbag of belongings 
to parts unknown. His two forerunners had set the precedent. In fine, the Madam 
gets husbands with the same ease she gets dollars, and gets rid of them both in like 
manner. 

But her unpardonable shortcomings according to the high circles of gossip is her 
inability to get the washboard out of her makeup, to dispel the atmosphere of suds in 
her social bearing. However, money spent freely will make a difference—and so, 
Madam Antoinette Sandal is paid homage by the upper crust. 

“My hair and beauty preparations work for me, my social secretary writes for me, 
my money talks for me and I should worry, indeed,” out of the Madam’s own gold- 
rimmed mouth. 


LAWYER HARREL—The Old Tiger 


No™: Gentlemen of the Jury. Remember the law says it is better to turn loose 
ninety-nine guilty men than convict one innocent man, and from the evidence 
submitted the defendant is only surrounded by the megrest circumstances. . . .” 

“Your Honor,” interrupted the District Attorney, “such mathematical calculations 
are not in the law of Alabama as the attorney would have the jury believe.” 

“Well, Your Honor, I didn’t say it was in the law of Alabama; but Your Honor 
and Gentlemen of the Jury, it is in the moral law! Now, coming back to this defendant 
whom the State’s case would have you believe is a murderess, you all remember the 
parable of the Master which He told about the woman at the well. You have a picture 
of it... the scorners, the accusers, the woman with her face in her hands, and the 
Master standing over her. He stooped and wrote in the sand; what He wrote no man 
knows, and then he charged them, ‘ He that is without sin among you, let him first cast 
a stone at her.’ 

“And what did those scoundrels do? What did they do? They slunk away one 
Dy one... 3 

: “Your Honor,” the District Attorney again to his feet, ‘‘is this Court to understand 
that the lawyer is actually intimidating the jury and insulting this Court? Sounds like 
that to me.” 

“Now, Your Honor, I did not interrupt the good attorney for the State when he 
was speaking, when he stood flatfooted and berated this jury with his scornful fore- 
finger, arousing them with, ‘who are you going to believe? Who are you going to 
believer White man or niggers’ If that isn’t intimidating their prejudices, then... .” 


40 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


“The defense may proceed with the speech; too much time has been spent on this 
case as it is,” ordered the Court eyeing the wall clock. 

That was a bit of the case of “State of Alabama vs. Dolly Jones,” charged with 
murdering her husband. Dolly got ten years and Dolly’s attorney got ten dollars for 
defending her. Sometimes he doesn’t get anything. But he’s used to that now; fifteen 
years in the courts, and seventy-one years old, he has long before set up for himself a 
philosophy of life. Never ina Law School, read it and passed the Bar orally, Lawyer 
Harrell was in the manner born to the profession. His mind wrapped intuitively around 
legal knots and softened them; he always seemed to have the right angle of things. He 
hangs around the criminal courts out of pure love, as a youngster broods over a puzzle 
or a dime detective story. It was play to him, counting in the odds of his swarthy face. 
The court bailiff summed it up unknowingly when he remarked: “That old nigger 
lawyer Harrell must carry a rabbit foot—he never misses the point.” 


BAPP Yeh RANE 


Betas Tramp has a real name but only Verge Deems, the undertaker, knows it. 
Yet everybody in the downtown section knows Happy Tramp. He isa guttersnipe. 
He is no tramp now for he never gets a mile away from Eighteenth Street. But he 
was a tramp once. 

Talk? Shut your eyes and hear him; with little imagination you could feel that 
a professor of English was speaking. What a contrast! a statue of brown humanity, 
chest-sunken, matted hair and draped in a pair of patched overalls and a jumper coat, 
straw hat with aspects of a wreck victim, and shoes a stevedore would sneer at. ‘Those 
shoes: well, hear Happy Tramp: 

“On my feet again, gentlemen. You see I’ve been off them for two months, but 
I’m on my feet again.” And he hoists up a leg, one after the other, showing his bare 
foot through a completely worn sole. 

“And you smoking a Portina, with another in your pocket,” someone comments. 

“Gentlemen, you see the aroma from a good cigar lifts me to ephemeral heights 
and allows me to transcend my ransomed body. Listen to Browning: ‘Poor vaunt of 
life indeed, were man but formed to feed on joy, to solely seek and find a feast... .’” 

“You see, I’ve told you Happy Tramp’s been to school,” a lounger remarks to 
another. And it was true. Somewhere back a decade or more this same floating piece 
of humanity stood high in his classes. He was a genius of his day and a coming light 
for his Race, but Time worked a slipknot and the ‘coming leader’ was blown to the 
four corners of the earth, returning with what is now known to Eighteenth Street as 
Happy Tramp. 


T. FAIRFAX LEROUX 


Geren of leisure, minister of the Gospel, economist, editor, social worker, 
and general jumping-jack is this fellow. And all those things easily in the course 
of one twelve months. 
But nothing short of a picture of him suffices. Not a measly word picture, not even 
a real photograph. Nothing but an eyeful picture of him gets over to you the amount 
of dignity and eminence that can be covered under so little a stretch of brown skin. 
Dapper would weakly describe him, only he’s no young man. Grey headed, prema- 
turely so he pompously claims, but there’s too much of the old grafty world in his 
bloodshot eyes to prove youth in the thirties even. 
Some more words of him: a snaggle-tooth bombast, a gospel ballyhooer, a misogy- 
nist, a brass paper weight. This last needs explanation. Living in a district where his 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 41 


people are needed as laborers, he reaches the height of his power, both egotistically 
and dollarly, when they, his people, are floating Northward. Brass paper weight— 
for the corporations depending on black hands he is a sort of sinker to hold down those 
with a tendency to flitter away to other fields. Brass because it takes that for such 
a job. 

There are so many sides to him, so many facets, until it is difficile to know just 
when you are getting him right. Perhaps his anti-feministic affectation js worth while. 
To him ladies are merely breakable china for men not busy with the thought burden 
of the world. They never entered his life—at least, not now, since his hair was begin- 
ning to turn grey. “Young man, when you’ve reached my stately age and grandeur of 
thought,” he explained to a youngster on the street, “you'll know not to mix women 
and toil. Let me but remind you of honest history: Antony, snuffed out of the noonday 
light of Rome by artful Cleopatra, biblical Sampson shorn of his hair and resistive 
powers, Alexander the Great sunk in ribaldry with his hundred generals by a Persian 
female, Napoleon millstoned with Josephine around his neck. Young man, go to 
your history.” 

But this was just a preamble to one of his street harangues. And with a voice 
that warmed in on a good pitch, his set jaw and sloping forehead, topped by a wiry 
pompadour of streaked grey, were charms that gathered him an audience. 

Yet, when all was said and done by him, his hearers walked away still unconvinced, 
they walked away as if somebody had hit them in the face with a handful of confetti. 

Another favorite theme of his that must not be omitted is: My past glories, me, 
and the future. He seldom got past the middle—me. Incidental to his past were his 
French and Negro ancestors, as you see from his name; Creole by common usage, but 
he negates this cleavage vehemently. 

The sweet meat of his past was his foreign training—“two years in Glasgow, one 
in Leipzig, and then four years under the English flag on the seven seas,” he puts it. 
“But,” he concludes eloquently, “never have I felt the pangs at my heart cockles so 
gripping as when I came under the gracious outstretched hand of Miss Liberty to 
land in that great cosmopolitan monolith, New York, then to wend my way to this 
glorious Southland, where God and men, black and white, are working out a great 
destiny. How but can my last and eternal rest be sweet in this land of magnolias 
and corn, how... .” 

And then some roughneck breaks loose with, “Hurrah, he’s stumping for corn. 
Corn—bottled in bond!” 

And that was the switch that threw his verbal train into a siding, wrecking the 

impromptu speech. 


TWO-GUN HART 


HERE are all kinds of fools: natural born, self-made, sick fools, half-wits, love- 

lorn and plain. Two-gun Hart is different and perhaps an appropriate title would 
be Strutting Phool. He ranges from Third Avenue along Eighteenth Street down to 
Fourth Avenue and back, touching all the four theaters. He doesn’t miss a single 
show but he does miss several meals. A western thriller is his best diet, and on them 
he lives, longs and thrives. And it is this imitating of the two-gun movie heroes that 
has turned him a dunce. Yet his imitating is original. 

Talk to him. He is incoherent and rattle-tongued, but you can catch some of his 
atmosphere. 

“Adius, Senor,” he greets you in foreign. He culled these from the screen, not 
by reading them himself but by hearing someone repeat them. 

“Howdy Hart,” you say for the sake of getting him to talk. ‘“What’s on at the 
Star to-day?” as if you were planning to go to the theater. 


42 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


“What's on? Me. Fight ind’uns and they shoot my hat off, but I get’s ’em. 
Bookety, bookety, bookety—that’s the way I makes my get-way,” and this with a 
kicking up of his heels to give you the scene. There are spurs on his high-heel shoes, 
and from the spurs up he is dressed like a cow boy. Two-gun Hart stays that way, 
sleeps that way for that matter. 

“Hart, can you ride a horse’” you jostle him. 

“Umph. What you take me fore Me ride? I bust broncoes for Ringling Brothers 
three years.” And again he gives you a pantomime of a rider on a bucking horse. 
Remember, this is on the street, people are passing, those few who have not stopped 
for the show. Hart sees his audience thickening and puts on other western antics, 
lassoing a boy out of the crowd with an imaginary rope or flashing a gun from his empty 
holster—the gun being imaginary, but the technic he displays making it rather real. 

Then a lady has paused to see what the excitement is and the Phool sees her. 
That breaks up the show, for he suddenly turns Don Quixotic and bows graciously to 


her feet, after which he arms through the crowd, mumbling, “no act the fool for squaw, _ 


will fight for her.” 
His expression has changed and no one attempts to stop him; his jaw is set and 
shoulders held straight. He has flashed from the simpleton to the sane, apparently. 


CLEOMANTHA 


B EAUTY in a woman is both a triumph and a tragedy on a fifty-fifty basis; it is like 

glistening gold in the eyes of mad men. And stronger, beauty in a swarthy skin in 
Dixie is ten percent triumph and ninety percent tragedy. They are increasing two-fold 
with every generation. ‘High yellows, whipped-creams, yellow-hammers, Egyptian 
olives, velvet browns,” are just a few of the sobriquets. 

Cleomantha, ticket girl at the Dreamland Theater, was born to a bewitching golden 
brown complexion. There was nothing sharp about her features or form and then there 
was nothing coarse or ponderous about her either. Her perfection points were her 
big expressive brown eyes, an unblemished complexion and a melting voice. 

Cleomantha now belonged to Eighteenth Street. For five years she has been 
selling tickets from the various theater booths, and ‘who was it who did not know 
Cleomantha, who was it who could pass, catch a glimpse of her face and not turn for 
a second lookr 

She came from Demopolis, a farming town barely out of the echo of the guns of 
Shiloh and Vicksburg; most of the good looking colored girls come from these small 
towns. In the city one never knows anything of their back-home ties; there is only 
that general rumor that colored men are not tolerated on the streets with these creamy- 
skinned girls back home, that their white paramours will first warn and then do 
violence. Such was the rumor that haloed itself around Cleomantha. But Cleomantha 
treaded her way along the Street composedly and without stopping. She seemed to 
bend herself to dressing and reading lightsome books and magazines. How she wards 
off the wolves and whether she does, are still riddles for Eighteenth Street. 


THE REVE’ND BUNN 


Soneic the race question, solving it in a ‘Jim-swinger’ and a pair of heavy tor- 
toise shell spectacles is the job-in-chief of the Rev’end G. W. Bunn, D.D., Ph.D. 
With such a herculean task upon him he takes it calmly. He is a pacifist without the 
“fist”, and to certain members of his Race little more than a baby’s rattle. 
However, the evening dailies give space to his articles. Here is a sample: 
“When one considers the army of good white people here one must be 
fair and say a word about them. Notwithstanding those who would drive us to 


LE —— a ae 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 43 


other fields of labor there are those good men and women of the Caucasian 

Race who understand us and our needs, who loved and harbored our forebears, 

who will give us a square deal, and it is with these folks that the American 

Negro had best stay in touch with. Each day they are voicing his part more 

and more, and in time will see that right here in the South will be a place of 

desire, and happiness. 

Then too, there is no overlooking the rigor of the Northern climate, the 
coldness of the Northern white man, the competition of the Northern 
foreigner. The South is the only place for the Negro... .” 

That is about as good as any of the others he submits. It is what the editors want 
and there is where the Rev’end’s headwork comes in. The world pays for what it 
wants as a rule, and each one of these epistles is a foundation for the Rev’end to solicit 
and collect funds for the Welfare Southern Home League, which he officers and 
headquarters in his ante-room office in the Washington Building, 

Where is the corporation employing colored workmen who would not contribute 
to such an asset? ‘The South is the best place for the Negro” is a text that anyone 
can cash in on. Say it louder and longer enough and silver will clink mysteriously 
into your pockets. 

Notwithstanding the sneer that the Rev’end is a cat’s paw, me-too-boss Negro, in 
truth he is a good business man, or in the slang, a jack-getter and a seducer of dollars. 

“Selling your birthright,” somebody chunked at him. “Hurting your Race,” 
another. 

“Wrong,” he came back aplomb, “my Race is yet a child, and who is it but knows 
that when you tell a child not to do a thing, he does it. Why, I’m responsible for 
several train loads going North. May I hint that ’m simply killing two birds with 
one stone. Ah, brothers, you must learn to look beyond your nose.” 


LAWYER HARRELL 


© LD man Harrell had another murder case to-day. Didn’t free his man, but says 

he will. Jury gave his client six years, which is a lot for a jury to admit in some 
of his cases. 

Leaving the Court room the Court Clerk stopped him. “Harrell, you know more 
Bible than you do law.” 

“Glad I do,” replied the old man. 

“You ought to get a brick church and preach to the niggers,” suggested the clerk. 

“Tt’s you folks who need preaching to,” answered Harrell. 

“You'd be a great help to your people,” insisted the official. 

“My people? Who do youmean? My people?” 

They looked at each other fiercely and said no more. Harrell’s father owned 
twenty slaves, among which was Harrell’s mother, a mulatto. 


MADAM ANTOINETTE SANDAL 


AGAIN Madam Sandal has compelled social acknowledgement. This time she 
extended herself by presenting a fete entitled ‘““[he Nile Queen’s Garden.” Among 
the citizens of color nothing like it had ever been given. It was a masquerade with a 
ban on all costumes not foreign. “Only Oriental costumed guests admitted” read the 
invitations and enclosed separately was the program, to wit: 
Costume Reception (Ten till Eleven) 
Madam Angel Bradshaw, Receptress 
Dansante Generale 
Sampson’s Jazz Serpents—Music 


44 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Danseuse de specialty 

Damsel Juliet Moore 
One O’Clock—Demasque et Luncheon 
Two O’Clock—The Sheik of the Night 

It was an affair of creation and a surprise ending. To have seen the Crowning 
Glory Ball Room where the fete was given would have been a long remembered scene. 
But for the French doors and adjustable windows it was a roof garden. However, it 
is for all-year use and the fete was in March, no time for outdoor effect. For orienta- 
tion all the window panes were colored alternately green, red and amber; in addition 
strange new scents from concealed incense burners were released. 

At one end of the ball room was draped a purple curtain. Reams of rhythm and 
impelling tunes from Sampson’s Jazz Serpents came through its royal folds and like- 
wise was issued forth Damsel Juliet Moore in a Nile River terpsichorean conception. 
At one o'clock with the ball room darkened the curtain parted and appeared a huge 
face of a clock, the hour marks and hands illuminated. A single penetrating gong 
stroke told the hour and the lights came on by degrees like day-break. One hour later 
the illuminated clock appeared again telling the hour. This time the lights came on 
quickly. Ensemble music was played by the orchestra; a hush of expectancy seized 
the guests. A shiny black cat emerged from the curtain slit and literally sailed down 
the middle of the ball room. Its body was the anchor for two balloons, one red and 
one white. Midway the room the balloons were freed and floated lazily towards the 
ceiling while the inky feline made a good escape through the door. No single guest 
dared move across the imaginary path of the midnight creature until the door through 
which the cat left shut with a bang. 

The balloons now held everybody’s attention. On the white balloon was the 
letter S and on the red balloon was the letter H. Comment broke from all lips—what 
was the significance? The lights were softening, finally leaving the doubtful green 
glow from the stained windows. 

“The—hour—has—come,” measured a rounded baritone behind the curtain. 
Strange music as if from a distance was heard again. “Hear ye—all. The—hour—has 
—come—when—the—Sheik—of—the—Night—will—appear!” 

Slowly parted the curtain; gradually came on the amber lights; nearer the music 
seemed and in solemn carriage stepped forth the “Sheik of the Night,” a tall masked 
figure, clothed in silk and velvet such as no sultan could ever despise. To the center 
of the room he strode arrogantly and then and there he deliberately unmasked. 

Sheik of the Night—none other than Dozier Horn, paragon of bootleggers along 
Eighteenth Street. 

“The balloons, the balloons,” someone exclaimed. “I have it—S stands for Sandal 
and H stands for Horn. They’re engaged!” 

Chatter, laughter and congratulations were showered upon the Sheik of the Night 
and the hostess, who suddenly appeared in the midst of the party as the Queen of 


the Nile. 
THE REV’END BUNN 


Ee HE Rev’end Bunn has been conspicuous by his absence from Eighteenth Street 
for a month. His long coat and wilted panama, his loping walk and twisted 
walking cane, his horned glasses and tar-tinted face, are marks of distinction he has 
carried elsewhere. Just before he left it was announced that he would take a vacation, 
swinging through the North and East. Now, tri-weekly his letters are published in 
the local dailies. Here is one from Youngstown: 
Since I have arrived in this busy city I have been overwhelmed with 
acquaintances from the South, and every one of them makes it known in some 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 45 


way his desire to once more see the good old Southland, where there is con- 
sideration of his methods of living and where the grind is not that of a tread 
mill. 


One man told me that if he doesn’t save enough money to buy a ticket 
to Andalusia, he’d walk back... . 


And one from Cleveland: 


. . . Nothwithstanding the high wages and many jobs, the Southern 
migrants don’t seem to be able to get their bearings here at all—the herding 
into cramped quarters, the eternal rushing, the lack of time to fraternalize, 
makes them wish and long for their old Southern surroundings. 

It makes me tremble to think what a terrible thing would happen to my 
wayward people in the event the industrial bottom should drop out of things 
Bete... 

And a letter from New York: 


This great city has already far too many colored Americans. I solemnly 
advise my fellow Racemen not to think of coming to this gigantic place. . . 
The South has more to offer them... . 


And one of the dailies had an editorial comment on the Rev’end Bunn’s great trip 
of revelation, stating that it “should open the eyes of the Southern Negroes to the fact 
that undisputably the South is the only and best place for them.” 


HAPPY TRAMP 


HApPpPY Tramp has just passed along. He does not look one whit different than 

he always has. Same threadbare trousers completely faded, a jumper coat that 
was once somebody else’s, trash pile shoes topped by bare brown ankles, a two-season 
straw hat and it is now October. 

Six months ago he began selling corn and synthetic rye for Dozier Horn; he has 
not missed a day and is the best known bootlegger along the Avenue. 

“Can't understand Happy Tramp,” said Dozier Horn. “I have in keeping for 
him over two thousand dollars and he won't let me buy him a decent pair of shoes.” 

Others had wrenched ready dollars from their illicit game; they either gambled 
and dressed it away, or lost it in paying fines and lawyer fees, or as a few attempted, 
quit and lived on what they had saved until in need again. Happy Tramp alone 
remained unaffected. 

Then one day Happy Tramp came to Dozier Horn and said: 

“TI want you to put that money of mine in the bank in the name of Temple Scott. 
And next, I’m going to have a will drawn up. Early in my life I was sent to Tuskegee 
to school; in my final year I ran away. I’m going to keep on working and what money 
I save I’m going to will to Tuskegee.” 

“But Tuskegee doesn’t want blood money,” suggested Dozier Horn. 


“Many an honorable institution has been built on what you call blood money,” 
Happy Tramp came back. “I pick up a coin from the filth of the gutter; I rub it 
and it shines. The money’s clean and good. Must it be bad if put to a worthy user 
That’s just the trouble with religion—it’s too afraid of the gutter.” 

“All right, Happy,” spoke up Horn. “Ill fix it as you say. But since you’re 
going to be one of those ‘philanthepers’ I wish you’d put on some decent clothes and 
look like one. Tuskagee’ll be ashamed of you.” 

“But they don’t know me—Happy Tramp. They know Temple Scott.” And he 
strode out to Eighteenth Street and away. 


46 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


THE REV’END BUNN 


Eighteenth Street has lost another habitue. The Rev’end Bunn, D.D., Ph.D. 
(this latter by correspondence) left to-day for Detroit, where he will take. up the 
pastorate of the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church. In accepting the call he gave out the 
following statement: 

I am not leaving my people in the South, I am following them. Too long 
have I been sidetracked from preaching the word of God, and it is with His 
Grace I come back into the work. 

So it has come to pass that I go to Detroit to do His will. . 

But this did not get in the white dailies. The Rev’end Bunn, o0- -between and 
trumpeter, found the current of migration too strong to resist. When he was on his 
tour for the Southern Labor Syndicate, Detroit had impressed him with its possibilities 
and problems. Then had come the clincher, the offer to minister the Mt. Sinai flock 


at three thousand per year. 
i iS \ 


oh 


a a 


JOHN HENRY 


A Negro Legend 
By Guy B. JOHNSON 


@EGRO folk have produced so many interesting characters that it is 
~ difficult to choose one from among them who stands above the others. 
4, However, I believe that most of those who know anything about John 
f Henry will agree with me that he deserves a very high rank, not only in 
© Negro folklore, but in American folklore in general. In the sixty years 
M& since this legend originated it has grown tremendously. In song and 
hn Henry is celebrated in every part of the country where Negro working men 
are to be found. 

John Henry, so the legend goes, was a steel driver. He lived ina day when steam 
drills and compressed air drills were just beginning to be used in tunnelling, mining, 
and the like. It is said that John Henry was a superior steel driver and that he 
enjoyed quite a reputation for his strength and endurance. He felt resentful when he 
heard steam drills were becoming practicable, and he said that he believed he could 
out-drill the things. He soon got his chance to make good. One day a representa- 
tive of a mechanical drill company came to the tunnel where John Henry was working 
and tried to sell the contractor a steam drill. The contractor was skeptical—said that 
he believed the drill was no faster than a good hand driver. The agent protested this 
statement, so the contractor retorted that he had a man whom he was willing to put 


against the drill. John Henry was called in, and he agreed to compete. As the story 
goes, 


John Henry said to his Captain, 

“Well, a man ain’t nothin’ but a man, 

An’ befo’ I'd be beaten by that old steam drill, 
Pll die with the hammer in my han’ 

Lawd, [Pll die with the hammer in my han’.” 

According to some versions of the story, a wager was made between John Henry’s 
“Captain” and the steam drill agent. Some say that in case John Henry lost, his 
“Captain” was to buy the drill; but if John Henry won, the agent was to give his drill 
away. “At any rate, the legend has it that the contest took place. John Henry drove 
the required depth before the steam drill did, but the poor man had put too much 
into the contest. He had barely taken his last stroke when he fell over in a faint and 
died “with hammer in his hand.” 

That, I believe, is about as dramatic an episode as one could ask for. I do not 
wonder that John Henry is regarded almost reverently by thousands of the Negro 
common folk, or that the tale has a fascination for all who have only recently heard 
if for the first time. 

The John Henry tradition exists in several forms. First, there are the stories, 
opinions and reminiscences of people who know something about John Henry. There 
are any number of people living, by the way, who claim to have known John Henry 
intimately. Of these I shall speak later. Then there are innumerable songs about 
John Henry. These may be divided into the ballad of narrative type and the work- 
song type. The former tells a story and is usually sung as a solo with guitar or banjo 


47 


48 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


accompaniment, while the latter is rarely consistently narrative and is most often sung 
by groups of workmen swinging picks or hammers in unison. | ; 

An expert “musicianer” singing a John Henry ballad, picking his “box,” patting 
his foot, swaying his body, is a picturesque sight. The following version is brief, but 
it gives the essential elements of the story. It was transcribed from the singing of a 
Negro workman at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. 


hammer “in his han’, DIe€ With the hammer “in his han’, 


John Henry was a steel-drivin’ man, 

Carried his hammer all the time, 

An’ befo’ he’d Jet the steam drill beat him down, 
He’d die with the hammer in his han’, 

Die with the hammer in his han’. 


John Henry went to the mountain, 

Beat that steam drill down; 

Rock was high, po’ John was small, 

Well, he laid down his hammer an’ he died, 
Laid down his hammer an’ he died. 


John Henry was a little babe 

Sittin’ on his daddy’s knee, 

Said “Big Ben” Tunnel on C. & O. road 
Gonna be the death o’ me, 

Gonna be the death o’ me.” 


John Henry had a little girl, 

Her name was Polly Ann. 

John was on his bed so low, 

She drove with his hammer like a man, 

Drove with his hammer like a man. 

But a group of dusky workmen singing and swinging in perfect rhythm is 4 still 

more picturesque sight. There is little substance and much repetition in their song, 
nevertheless it is enchanting. Here is a good example of a John Henry work song. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 49 


This old hammer—huh! 

Hammer killed John Henry—huh! 
This old hammer—huh! 

Hammer killed John Henry—huh 
Can’t kill me—huh! 

Lawd, Lawd, can’t kill me—huh! 


The variations of ballads, work songs, and stories about John Henry which exist 
among the Negro folk would fill an enormous volume, so I can only sketch briefly here 
the ramifications of the legend. 

Take, for example, the varying ideas as to the situation in which John Henry 
met his death. The usual opinion is that he was working in a tunnel when he had his 
great contest with the steam drill. But steel driving is a term applied not only to the 
drilling operations used in mining, tunneling, and other work in which explosives 
are used, but also to the driving of spikes into railroad cross-ties. Therefore, we find 
John Henry driving steel in tunnels, in mines, in quarries, and on railroads. Practically 
every Southern state claims John Henry, the legend varying according to local condi- 
tions. Sometimes, in fact most often, he is said to have died at “Big Bend Tunnel on 
the C. and O. Road.” Sometimes it is “Tunnel No. Nine” on the Southern Railroad. 
Again it is a tunnel which railway engineers say does not exist. Sometimes John 
Henry is represented as dying immediately after the contest, sometimes it is said that 
he was taken to his shanty where he died later. And I have come across such beliefs 
as that expressed in the following stanza: 

John Henry was killed on the railroad 
A mile and a half from town, 

His head cut off in the driving wheel 
And his body ain’t never been found. 

Or take the ideas about John Henry’s surname. Of course, his full name might 
have been just John Henry, for that was once a very popular name among Negroes, 
both slave and free. There were about a dozen free Negro heads of families who bore 
the name of John Henry even as far back as 1830. But I often ask this question as to 
John Henry’s full name when I am talking to some one about John Henry, and the 
replies are interesting. One man who claimed to have worked with John Henry said 
that his name was John Henry Dula. Another who claimed to have been with John 
Henry when he died, said that his surname was Dabney. Other names I have en- 
countered are John Henry Brown, John Henry Martin, John Henry Jones, John 
Henry Whitsett. 

Some say that John Henry was a North Carolinian, others say he was from 
South Carolina, or Tennessee, or Alabama, or Virginia. Some Negroes feel very 
strongly on this matter. In fact, I once heard of a fight arising between two men because 
one of them said that John Henry was born somewhere other than Virginia. Some 
admirer of John Henry was so eager to give Virginia the credit that he put a stanza 
like this in one of the John Henry ballads. 

Some said he came from England, 

Some said he came from Spain, 

But it’s no such thing, he was an East Virginia man, 
And he died with the hammer in his hand, 

He died with the hammer in his hand. 

Similar variations of other aspects of the legend might be pointed out, but these 
will suffice to show the trend. No two persons tell the story of John Henry alike, yet 
on the whole there is among the Negro folk a firm conviction that John Henry really 
lived, really beat the steam drill and really “died with the hammer in his hand.” 


50 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


And this leads to the question of how it all got started. Is this John Henry tradition 
true? I do not consider this question of any great importance, but it is usually the 
frst one which one asks on hearing about John Henry for the first time, so I want to 
touch upon it briefly. 

There are quite a few people living who claim to have known John Henry. I 
have talked or corresponded with several such’ persons, and their testimony is an 
important part of the evidence on this question of John Henry’s reality. For example, 
one old Negro man in western North Carolina told me that he knew John Henry and 
that he was certain that John Henry really beat a steam drill at Big Bend Tunnel. 
Another man, a Negro minister from Kentucky, said that as a boy he “packed” water 
in Big Bend Tunnel and that he saw John Henry beat the steam drill. A young man 
from Cleveland, Ohio, wrote me that his father worked with the “original John Henry” 
in Kentucky in 1886. A man from South Carolina wrote that his father once worked 
with John Henry in Tennessee, but he does not know where John Henry’s death 
occurred. A white man of Orange County, Virginia, stated that he was once employed 
by one of the contractors who built the Big Ben Tunnel and that he has heard the 
contractor say time and again that the story of John Henry is true. Three different 
persons, one from Alabama, one from Michigan, and one from Utah, have written 
me about the John Henry story, vouching for its authenticity, and giving the time and 
place of the contest as northeastern Alabama about 1882. There are various other 
reminiscences, but these are typical of the ones most frequently found. 

Thus, when we consider the testimony of old timers who claim to have personal 
knowledge of John Henry, we find that, while there were inconsistencies and impos- 
sibilities in the details, there is a convergence of opinion pointing toward only one or 
two places as possible locations of the original steel-driving contest. Practically all 
of the clues which are worth following point either toward the Big Bend Tunnel on 
the C. and O. Railroad in West Virginia, or toward some such place as Cursey (or 
Cruzee) Mountain Tunnel in Alabama. The Big Bend Tunnel was built in 1870-72, 
and, since it antedates the alleged Alabama tunnel by ten years, it is the more likely 
place. 

Last year I made a personal investigation at Big Bend Tunnel, interviewing the 
residents, especially the old timers who worked on the tunnel when it was being built. 
I might summarize the situation as follows: ‘There is a pretty general disposition 
around the Big Bend region to take the John Henry story for granted, but there are 
several people who firmly believe that John Henry is a myth, and there are only three 
or four who will say that they actually saw John Henry or saw the famous contest. 
One man gave me a detailed description of the steam drill and of the contest, which he 
said he saw as he went back and forth carrying water and drills for the gang on which 
John Henry worked. Yet his testimony is disputed by other residents who apparently 
were in as good position as he to know what was going on, as well as by railroad 
officials and mechanical engineers who say that no steam drill was ever taken to Big 
Bend Tunnel. 

What, then, is the answer to the question? It is entirely possible that the whole 
thing is purely legendary and that certain men have heard the legend so long that 
they have actually come to believe that they knew this man John Henry. On the other 
hand, it is just as possible that the legend is based on an actual occurrence. Indeed, 
it is possible that more than one John Henry competed with a steam drill and “died 
with the hammer in his hand” or came so near dying that it was not difficult for his 
admirers to say that he died. An investigation of the Alabama claims noted above 
mea bring out the same sort of evidence of authenticity as has been found at Big 

end. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ Bt 


At any rate, one who goes out to look for the answer to the mystery of John 
Henry’s origin will not have easy sledding. He will find personal testimony galore, 
but it is fallible and contradictory and not the sort of proof which scientists demand. 
Personally, I am pretty well convinced that John Henry existed in the flesh and beat a 
steam drill at Big Bend Tunnel, but I confess that my belief is based on a sort of 
common-sense logic and not on what the historians call documentary evidence. 

But the question of the origin and truth of the legend does not matter greatly. 
The legend is here, as vigorous and as fascinating as ever. The great thing, after all, 
is that thousands of Negro folk believe in John Henry and think of him reverently. 
To them he is a hero, an epic figure, a martyr who died defending the dignity of 
common labor and its superiority over that symbol of the white man’s civilization— 
the machine. 

I marvel that some poet among the “(New Negro” generation does not sing John 
Henry’s praises, that some playwright does not dramatize him, that some painter does 
not picture him as he battles with the steam drill, or that some sculptor does not fulfil 
the wishful phantasy of that Negro pick-and-shovel man who said to me, scap in 
they tells me that they got John Henry’s statue carved out 0’ solid rock at the head 
o’ Big Ben’ Tunnel. Yes, sir, there he stan’ with the hammer in his han’.” 


re ai 


THINGS SAID WHEN HE WAS GONE 
By BLANCHE TAYLOR DICKINSON 


My branch of thoughts ts frail tonight 
As one lone wind-whipped weed. 
Little I care if a rain drop laughs 

Or cries; I cannot heed 


Such trifles now as a twinkling star, 
Or catch a night-bird’s tune. 

My whole life ts you, to-night, 
And you, a cool distant moon. 


With a few soft words to nurture my heart 

And brighter beams following love’s cool shower 
Who knows but this frail wind-whipped weed 
Might bear you a gorgeous flower! 


52 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


APRIL IS ON THE WAY 


By Atice DuNBAR NELSON 


April is on the way! 

1 saw the scarlet flash of a blackbird’s wing 

As he sang in the cold, brown February trees; 

And children said that they caught a glimpse of the 

sky on a bird’s wing from the far South. 

(Dear God, was that a stark figure outstretched in 
the bare branches 

Etched brown against the amethyst sky?) 


April is on the way! 

The ice crashed in the brown mud-pool under my 
tread, 

The warning earth clutched my hluody feet with 
great fecund fingers. 

I saw a boy rolling a hoop up the road, 

His little bare hands were red with cold, 

But his brown hair blew backward in the southwest 
wind. 

(Dear God! He screamed when he saw my awful 
woe-spent eyes.) 


April is on the way! 

I met a woman in the lane; 

Her burden was heavy as it is always, but today 
her step was light, 

And a smile drenched the tired look away from her 
eyes. 

(Dear God, she had dreams of vengeance for her 
slain mate, 

Perhaps the west wind has blown the mist of hate 
from her heart, 

The dead man was cruel to her, you know that, 


God.) 


April is on the way! 

My feet spurn the ground now, instead of dragging 
on the bitter road. 

I laugh in my throat as I see the grass greening be- 
side the patches of snow 

(Dear God, those were wild fears. Can there be 
hate when the southwest wind is blowing?) 


April is on the way! 

The crisp brown hedges stir with the bustle of bird 
Wings. 

There is business of building, and songs from brown 
thrush throats 

As the bird-carpenters make homes against Valen- 
tine Day. 


(Dear God, could they build me a shelter in the 
hedge from the icy winds that will come 
with the dark?) 


April is on the way! 

I sped through the town this morning. The florist 
shops have put yellow flowers in the win- 
dows, 

Daffodils and tulips and primroses, pale yellow 
flowers 

Like the tips of her fingers when she waved me that 
frightened farewell. 

And the women in the market have stuck pussy wil- 
lows in long necked bottles on their stands. 

(Willow trees are kind, Dear God. They will not 
bear a body on their limbs.) 


April is on the way! 

The soul within me cried that all the husk of in- 
difference to sorrow was but the crust of ice 
with which winter disguises life; 

It will melt, and reality will burgeon forth like the 
crocuses in the glen. 

(Dear God! Those thoughts were from long ago. 
When we read poetry after the day’s toil. 
and got religion together at the revival 
meeting.) 


A pril is on the way! 

The infinite miracle of unfolding life in the brown 
February fields. 

(Dear God, the hounds are baying!) 

Murder and wasted love, lust and weariness, deceit 
and vainglory—what are they but the spent 
breath of the runner? 


(God, you know he laid hairy red hands on the 


golden loveliness of her little daffodil body) 
Hate may destroy me, but from my brown limbs 
will bloom the golden buds with which we 
once spelled love. 
(Dear God! How their light eyes glow into black 
pin points of hate!) 


A pril is on the way! 

Wears are made in April, and they sing at Easter 
time of the Resurrection. 

Therefore I laugh in their faces. 

(Dear God, give her strength to join me before her 

. golden petals are fouled in the slime!) 

April is on the way! 


a a ee a a ee 


“THE FIRST ONE” 
A Play in One Act 


By ZORA NEALE HURSTON 


Time: ‘Three Years After the Flood 

Place: Valley of Ararat 

Persons: Noah, His Wife, Their Sons: Shem, Japheth, Elam; 
Eve, Ham’s Wife; The Sons’ wives and children (6 or 7). 


Setting: 

Morning in the Valley of Ararat. The Mountain is in the near distance. Its 
lower slopes grassy with grazing herds. The very blue sky beyond that. These together 
form the back-ground. On the left downstage is a brown tent. A few shrubs are 
scattered here and there over the stage indicating the temporary camp. A rude altar 
is built center stage. A Shepherd’s crook, a goat skin water bottle, a staff and other 


evidences of nomadic life lie about the entrance to the tent. 
Several sheep or goat skins are spread about on 


a plain clad with bright flowers. 


To the right stretches 


the ground upon which the people kneel or sit whenever necessary. 


Action: 

Curtain rises on an empty stage. It is dawn. A great stillness, but immediately 
Noah enters from the tent and ties back the flap. He is clad in loose fitting dingy robe 
tied about the waist with a strip of goat hide. Stooped shoulders, flowing beard. He 
gazes about him. His gaze takes in the entire stage. 


Noah (fervently): Thou hast restored the Earth, 

Jehovah, it is good. (Turns to the tent.) My 
sons! Come, deck the altar for the sacrifices to 
Jehovah. It is the third year of our coming to 
this valley to give thanks offering to Jehovah that 
he spared us. 
(Enter Japheth bearing a haunch of meat and 
Shem with another. The wife of Noah and those 
of Shem and Japheth follow laying on sheaves of 
grain and fruit (dates and figs). They are all 
middle-aged and clad in dingy garments. 

Noah: And where is Ham—son of my old age? 
Why does he not come with his wife and son to 
the sacrifice? 

Mrs. Noah: He arose before the light and went. 
(She shades her eyes with one hand and points 
toward the plain with the other.) His wife, as 
ever, went with him. 

Shem (impatiently) : This is the third year that we 
have come here to this Valley to commemorate 
our ‘delivery from the flood. Ham knows. the 
sacrifice is made always at sunrise. See! (He 
points to rising sun.) He should be here, 

Noah (lifts his hand in a gesture of reproval) :.We 
shall wait. The sweet singer, the child of my 
loins after old age had come upon me is warm 
to my heart—let us wait. 


(There is off-stage, right, the twanging of a rude 
stringed instrument and laughter. Ham, _ his 
wife and son come dancing on down-stage right. 
He is in his early twenties. He is dressed in 
a very white goat-skin with a wreath of shiny 
green leaves about his head. He has the rude 
instrument in his hands and strikes it. His wife 
is clad in a short blue garment with a girdle of 
shells. She has a wreath of scarlet flowers about 
her head. She has black hair, is small, young 
and lithe. She wears anklets and wristlets of the 
samé red flowers. Their son about three years 
old wears nothing but a broad band of leaves and 
flowers about his middle. They caper and prance 
to the altar. Ham’s wife and son bear flowers. 
A bird is perched on Ham’s shoulder. 

Noah (extends his arms in greeting): My son, 
thou art late. But the sunlight comes with thee. 
(Ham gives bird to Mrs. Noah, then embraces 
Noah.) 

Ham (rests his head for a moment on Noah’s shoul- 
der); We arose early and went out on the plain 
to make ready for the burnt offering before Je- 
hovah. 

Mrs. Shem (tersely) : But you bring nothing. 

Ham: See thou! We bring flowers and music to 
offer up. I shall dance tefore Jehovah and sing 


33 


54 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


joyfully upon the harp that I made of the thews 
of rams. (He proudly displays the instrument 
and strums once or twice.) 

Mrs. Shem (clapping her hands to her ears): Oh, 
Peace! Have we not enough of thy bawling and 
prancing all during the year? Shem and Japheth 
work always in the fields and vineyards, while 
you do naught but tend the flock and sing! 

Mrs. Japheth (looks contemptously at both Ham 
and Noah): Still, thou art beloved of thy father 
_. . he gives thee all his vineyards for thy sing- 
ing, but Japheth must work hard for his fields. 

Mrs. Shem: And Shem— 

Noah (angrily): Peace! Peace! Are lust and 
strife again loose upon the Earth? Jehovah 
might have destroyed us all. Am I not Lord of 
the world? May I not bestow where I will? 
Besides, the world is great. Did I not give food, 
and plenty to the thousands upon thousands that 
the waters licked up? Surely there is abundance 
for us and our seed forever. Peace! Let us to 
the sacrifice. 

(Noah goes to the heaped up altar. Ham exits 
to the tent hurriedly and returns with a torch 
and hands it to Noah who applies it to the altar. 
He kneels at the altar and the others kneel in a 
semi-circle behind him at a little distance. Noah 
makes certain ritualistic gestures and chants) : 
“Q Mighty Jehovah, who created the Heaven 
and the firmaments thereof, the Sun and Moon, 
the stars, the Earth and all else besides— 

Others: I am here 
I am here, O, Jehovah 
I am here 
This is thy Kingdom, and I am here. 

(A deep silence falls for a moment.) 

Noah: Jehovah, who saw evil in the hearts of men, 
who opened upon them the windows of Heaven 
and loosed the rain upon them—And the foun- 
tains of the great deep were broken up— 

Others (repeat chant) 

Noah: Jehovah who dried up the floods and drove 
the waters of the sea again to the deeps—who 
met Noah in the Vale of Ararat and made cove- 
nant with Noah, His servant, that no more would 
he smite the Earth—And Seed time and Harvest, 
Cold and Heat, Summer and Winter, day and 
night shall not cease forever, and set His rainbow 
as a sign. 

Noah and Others: We are here O Jehovah 
We are here 
We are here 
This is Thy Kingdom 
And we are here. 

(Noah arises, makes obeisance to the smoking 
altar, then turns and blesses the others. ) 

Noah: Noah alone, whom the Lord found worthy ; 
Noah whom He made lord of the Earth, blesses 
you and your seed forever. 

(At a gesture from him all arise. The women 
take the meat from the altar and carry it into 
the tent.) Eat, drink and make « joyful noise 


before Him. For He destroyed the Earth, but 
spared us. (Women re-enter with bits of roast 
meat—all take some and eat. All are seated on 
the skins.) 

Mrs. Noah (feelingly): Yes, three years ago, all 
was water, water, WATER! The deeps howled as 
one beast to another. (She shudders.) In my 
sleep, even now, I am in that Ark again being 
borne here, there on the great bosom. 

Mrs. Ham (wide-eyed) : And the dead! Floating, 
floating all about us—We were one little speck of 
life in a world of death! (The bone slips from 
her hand.) And there, close beside the Ark, close 
with her face upturned as if begging for shelter 
—my mother! (She weeps, Ham comforts her.) 

Mrs. Shem (eating vigorously) : She would not re- 
pent. Thou art as thy mother was—a seeker 
after beauty of raiment and laughter. God is 
just. She would not repent. 

Mrs. Ham: But the unrepentant are no less loved. 
And why must Jehovah hate beauty? 
Noah: Speak no more of the waters. Oh, the 
strength of the waters! The voices and the 
death of it! Let us have the juice of the grape 
to make us forget. Where once was death in this 
Valley there is now life abundant of beast and 
herbs. (He waves towards the scenery.) Je- 
hovah meets us here. Dance! Be glad! Bring 
wine! Ham smite thy harp of ram’s thews and 

sing! 

(Mrs. Noah gathers all the children and exits 
to the tent. Shem, Japheth, their wives and 
children eat vigorously. Mrs. Ham exits, left. 
Ham plays on his harp and capers about singing. 
Mrs. Ham re-enters with goatskin of wine and 
a bone cup. She crosses to where Noah reclines 
on a large skin. She kneels and offers it to him. 
He takes the cup—she pours for him. Ham 
sings—) 

Ham: 

“T am as a young ram in the Spring 
Or a young male goat. 
The hills are beneath my feet 
And the young grass. 
Love rises in me like the flood 
And ewes gather round me for food.” 
His wife joins in the dancing. Noah cries “Pour” 
and Mrs. Ham hurries to fill his cup again. Ham 
joins others on the skins. The others have horns 
suspended from their girdles. Mrs. Ham fills 
them all. Noah cries “pour” again and she re- 
turns to him. She turns to fill the others’ cups. 

Noah (rising drunkenly): Pour again, Eve, and 
Ham sing on and dance and drink—drown out 
the waters of the flood if you can. (His tongue 
grows thick. Eve fills his cup again. He reels 
drunkenly toward the tent door, slopping the 
liquor out of the cup as he walks.) Drink wine, 
forget water—it means death, death! And bodies 
floating, face up! (He stares horrified about 
himself and creeps stealthily into the tent, but 
sprawls just inside the door so that his feet are 


EBONY. AND: TOPAZ 55 


visible. ‘There is silence for a moment, the others 
are still eating. They snatch tid-bits from each 
other.) 

Japheth (shoves his wife) : Fruit and herbs, woman! 
(He thrusts her impatiently forward with his 
foot.) She exits left. 

Shem (to his wife): More wine! 

Mrs. Shem (irritated) : See you not that there is 
plenty still in the bottle? (He seizes it and 
pours. Ham snatches it away and pours. Shem 
tries to get it back but Ham prevents him. Re- 
enter Mrs. Japheth with figs and apples. Every- 
body grabs. Ham and Shem grab for the same 
one, Ham gets it). 

Mrs. Shem (significantly) : Thus he seizes all else 
that he desires. Noah would make him lord of 
the Earth because he sings and capers. (Ham is 
laughing drunkenly and pelting Mrs. Shem with 
fruit skins and withered flowers that litter the 
ground. This infuriates her.) 

Noah (calls from inside the tent): Eve, wine, 
quickly! I’m sinking down in the WATER! 
Come drown the WATER with wine. 

(Eve exits to him with the bottle. Ham arises 
drunkenly and starts toward the tent door.) 

Ham (thickly): I go to pull our father out of the 
water, or to drown with him in it. (Ham is 
trying to sing and dance.) “I am as a young 
goat in the sp-sp-sp-. (He exits to the tent 
laughing. Shem and Japheth sprawl out in the 
skins. “The wives are showing signs of surfeit. 
Ham is heard laughing raucously inside the tent. 
He re-enters still laughing.) 

Ham (in the tent door): Our Father has stripped 
himself, showing all his wrinkles. Ha! Ha! He’s 
as no young goat in the spring. Ha! Ha! (Still 
laughing, he reels over to the altar and sinks 
down behind it still laughing.) The old Ram, 
Ha! Ha! Ha! He has had no spring for years! 
Ha! Ha! (He subsides into slumber. Mrs. 
Shem looks about her exultantly.) 

Mrs. Shem: Ha! The young goat has fallen into 
a pit! (She shakes her husband.) Shém! Shem! 
Rise up and become owner of Noah’s vineyards 
as well as his flocks! (Shem kicks weakly at 
her.) Shem! Fool! Arise! Thou art thy 
father’s first born. (She pulls him protesting to 
his feet.) Do stand up and regain thy birthright 
from (she points to the altar) that dancer who 
plays on his harp of ram thews, and decks his 
brow with bay leaves. Come! 

Shem (brightens) : How? 

His wife: Did he not go into the tent and come 
away laughing at thy father’s nakedness? Oh 
(she beats her breast) that I should live to see 
a father so mocked and shamed by his son to 
whom he has given all his vineyards! (She 
seizes a large skin from the ground.) Take this 
and cover him and tell him of the wickedness of 
thy brother. 

Mrs. Japheth (arising takes hold of the skin also) : 
No, my husband shall also help to cover Noah, 


our father. Did I not also hear? ‘Think your 
Shem and his seed shall possess both flocks and 
vineyard while Japheth and his seed have only 
the fields? (She arouses Japheth, he stands.) 

Shem: He shall share— 

Mrs, Shem (impatiently) : Then go in (the women 
release the skin to the men) quickly, lest he wake 
sober, then will he not believe one word against 
Ham who needs only to smile to please him. 
(The men lay the skin across their shoulders and 
back over to the tent and cover Noah. ‘They 
motion to leave him.) 

Mrs. Shem: Go back, fools, and wake him. You 

have done but half. 
(They turn and enter the tent and both shake 
Noah. He sits up and rubs his eyes. Mrs. Shem 
and Mrs. Japheth commence to weep ostenta- 
tiously). 

Noah (peevishly): Why do you disturb me, and 
why do the women weep? I thought all sorrow 
and all cause for weeping was washed away by 
the flood. (He is about to lie down again but 
the men hold him up.) 

Shem: Hear, father, thy age has been scoffed, and 
thy nakedness made a thing of shame here in the 
midst of the feasting where all might know—thou 
the Lord of all under Heaven, hast been mocked. 

Mrs. Shem: And we weep in shame, that thou our 

father should have thy nakedness uncovered before 
us. 

Noah (struggling drunkenly to his feet): Who, 
who has done this thing? 

Mrs. Shem (timidly crosses and kneels before 
Noah): We fear to tell thee, lord, lest thy love 
for the doer of this iniquity should be so much 
greater than the shame, that thou should slay us 
for telling thee. 

Noah (swaying drunkenly): Say it, woman, shall 
the lord of the Earth be mocked? Shall his 
nakedness be uncovered and he be shamed before 
his family? 

Shem: Shall the one who has done this thing hold 
part of thy goods after thee? How wilt thou 
deal with them? Thou hast been wickedly 
shamed. 

Noah: No, he shall have no part in my goods—his 
goods shall be parcelled out among the others. 

Mrs. Shem: Thou art wise, father, thou art just! 

Noah: He shall be accursed. His skin shall be 
black! Black as the nights, when the waters 
brooded over the Earth! 

(Enter Mrs. Noah from tent, pauses by Noah.) 

Mrs. Noah (catches him by the arm): Cease! 
Whom dost thou curse? 

Noah (shaking his arm free. The others also look 
awed and terrified and also move to stop him. 
All rush to him. Mrs. Noah attempts to stop 
his mouth with her hand. He shakes his head 
to free his lips and goes in a drunken fury) : 
Black! He and his seed forever. He shall 
serve his brothers and they shall rule over him— 
Ah—Ah—. (He sinks again to the ground. 


56 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


There is a loud burst of drunken laughter from 
behind the altar.) 

Ham: Ha! Ha! I am as a young ram—Ha! Ha! 

Mrs. Noah (to Mrs. Shem) ; Whom cursed Noah? 

Mrs. Shem: Ham—Ham mocked his age. Ham 
uncovered his nakedness, and Noah grew wrath- 
ful and cursed him. Black! He could not mean 
black. It is enough that he should lose his vine- 
yards. (There is absolute silence for a while. 
Then realization comes to all. Mrs. Noah rushes 
in the tent to her husband, shaking him violently. ) 

Mrs. Noah (voice from out of the tent): Noah! 
Arise! Thou art no lord of the Earth, but a 
drunkard. Thou hast cursed my son. Oh water, 
Shem! Japheth! Cold water to drive out the 
wine. Noah! (She sobs.) Thou must awake 
and unsay thy curse. Thou must! (She is sob- 
bing and rousing him. Shem and Japheth seize 
a skin bottle from the ground by the skin door 
and dash off right. Mrs. Noah wails and the 
other women join in. ‘They beat their breasts. 
Enter Eve through the tent. She looks puzzled.) 

Mrs. Ham: Why do you wail? Are all not happy 
today? 

Mrs. Noah (pityingly) : Come, Eve. Thou art but 
a child, a heavy load awaits thee. (Eve turns 
and squats beside her mother-in-law.) 

Eve (carressing Mrs. Noah): Perhaps the wine is 
too new. Why do you shake our father? 

Mrs. Noah: Not the wine of grapes, but the wine 

of sorrow bestirs me thus. Turn thy comely face 
to the wall, Eve. Noah has cursed thy husband 
and his seed forever to be black, and to serve his 
brothers and they shall rule over him. 
(Re-enter the men with the water bottle running. 
Mrs. Noah seizes it and pours it in his face. He 
stirs.) See, I must awaken him that he may un- 
speak the curse before it be too late. 

Eve: But Noah is drunk—surely Jehovah hears not 
a drunken curse. Noah would not curse Ham if 
he knew. Jehovah knows Noah loves Ham more 
than all. (She rushes upon Noah and shakes him 
violently.) Oh, awake thou (she shrieks) and 
uncurse thy curse. (All are trying to rouse 
Noah. He sits, opens his eyes wide and looks 
about him. Mrs. Noah carresses him.) 

Mrs. Noah: Awake, my lord, and unsay thy curse. 

Noah: I am awake, but I know of no curse. Whom 
did I curse? 

Mrs. Noah and Eve: Ham, lord of the Earth. (He 
rises quickly to his feet and looks bewildered 
about. ) 

Japheth (falls at his feet) : Our father, and lord of 
all under Heaven, you cursed away his vine- 
yards, but we do not desire them. You cursed 
him to be black—he and his seed forever, and that 
his seed shall be our servants forever, but we de- 
sire not their service. Unsay it all. 

Noah (rushes down stage to the footlights, center. 
He beats his breast and bows his head to the 
ground.) Oh, that I had come alive out of my 
mother’s loins! Why did not the waters of the 


flood bear me back to the deeps! Oh Ham, my 
son! 

Eve (rushing down to him): Unspeak the Curse! 
Unspeak the Curse! 

Noah (in prayerful attitude): Jehovah, by our 
covenant in this Valley, record not my curses on 
my beloved Ham. Show me once again the sign 
of covenant—the rainbow over the Vale of Ara- 
rat. 

Shem (strikes his wife): It was thou, covetous wo- 
man, that has brought this upon us. 

Mrs. Shem (weeping): Yes, I wanted the vine- 
yards for thee, Shem, because at night as thou 
slept on my breast I heard thee sob for them. I 
heard thee murmur “Vineyards” in thy dreams. 

Noah: Shem’s wife is but a woman. 

Mrs. Noah: How rash thou art, to curse unknow- 
ing in thy cups the son of thy loins. 

Noah: Did not Jehovah repent after he had de- 
stroyed the world? Did He not make all. flesh? 
Their evils as well as their good? Why did He 
not with His flood of waters wash out the evil 
from men’s hearts, and spare the creatures He had 
made, or else destroy us all, al/? For in sparing 
one, He has preserved all the wickedness that He 
creates abundantly, but punishes terribly. No, 
He destroyed them because vile as they were it 
was His handiwork, and it shamed and re- 
proached Him night and day. He could not bear 
to look upon the thing He had done, so He de- 
stroyed them. 

Mrs. Noah: Thou canst not question. 

Noah (weeping): Where is my son? 

Shem (pointing): Asleep behind the altar. 

Noah: If Jehovah keeps not the covenant this time, 
if He spare not my weakness, then I pray that 
Ham’s heart remains asleep forever. 

Mrs. Shem (beseeching) : O Lord of the Earth, let 
his punishment be mine. We coveted his vine- 
yards, but the curse is too awful for him. He is . 
drunk like you—save him, Father Noah. | 

Noah (exultantly): Ah, the rainbow! The prom- 
ise! Jehovah will meet me! He will set His 
sign in the Heavens! Shem hold thou my right 
hand and Japheth bear up my left arm. 

(Noah approaches the altar and kneels. The 
two men raise his hands aloft.) 
Our Jehovah who carried us into the ark— 

Sons: Victory, O Jehovah! ‘The Sign. 

Others (beating their breasts): This is Thy King- 
dom and we are here. 

Noah: Who saved us from the Man of the Waters. 

Sons: Victory, O Jehovah! The Sign. 

Others: We belong to Thee, Jehovah, we belong 
to Thee. 

(There is a sudden, loud raucous laugh from be- 
hind the altar. Ham sings brokenly, “I am a 
young ram in the Spring.”) 

Noah (hopefully); Look! Look! To the moun- 
tain—do ye see colors appear? 

Mrs. Noah: None but what our hearts paint for 
us—ah, false hope. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 57 


Noah: Does the sign appear, I seem to see a faint 
color just above the mountain. (Another laugh 
from Ham.) 

Eve: None, none yet. (Beats her breast violently, 
speaks rapidly.) Jehovah, we belong to Thee, we 
belong to Thee. 

Mrs. Noah and Eve: Great Jehovah! Hear us. 

We are here in Thy Valley. We who belong to 
Thee! 
(Ham slowly rises. He stands and walks around 
the altar to join the others, and they see that he 
is black. They shrink back terrified. He is 
laughing happily. Eve approaches him timidly 
as he advances around the end of the altar. She 
touches his hand, then his face. She begins kiss- 
ing him.) 

Ham: Why do you all pray and weep? 

Eve: Look at thy hands, thy feet. Thou art cursed 
biack by thy Father. (She exits weeping left.) 
Ham (gazing horrified at his hands): Black! (He 
appears stupified. All shrink away from him as 
if they feared his touch. He approaches each in 
turn. He is amazed. He lays his hand upon 

Shem. 

Shem (shrinking): Away! Touch me not! 

»- Ham: (approaches his mother. She does not repel 
him, but averts her face.) Why does my mother 
turn away? 

Mrs. Noah: So that my baby may not see the flood 
that hath broken the windows of my soul and 
loosed the fountains of my heart. 

(There is a great clamor off stage and Eve re- 
enters left with her boy in her arms Weeping and 
all the other children in pursuit jeering and pelt- 
ing him with things. The child is also black. 
Ham looks at his child and falls at Noah’s feet. 

Ham (beseeching in agony): Why Noah, my 

father and lord of the Earth, why? 


Noah (sternly): Arise. Ham. Thou art black. 
Arise and go out from among us that we may see 
thy face no more, lest by lingering the curse of 
thy blackness come upon all my seed forever. 

Ham (grasps his father’s knees. Noah repels him 
sternly, pointing away right. Eve steps up to 
Ham and raises him with her hand. She displays 
both anger and scorn.) 

Eve: Ham, my husband, Noah is right. Let us go 
before you awake and learn to despise your father 
and your God. Come away Ham, beloved, come 
with me, where thou canst never see these faces 
again, where never thy soft eyes can harden by 
looking too oft upon the fruit of their error, 
where never thy happy voice can learn to Weep. - 
Come with me to where the sun shines forever, 
to the end of the Earth, beloved the sunlight of 
all my years. (She kisses his mouth and fore- 
head. She crosses to door of tent and_ picks up 
a water bottle. Ham looks dazedly about him. 
His eyes light on the harp and he smilingly picks 
it up and takes his place beside Eve. 

Ham (lightly cynical to all): Oh, remain with 
your flocks and fields and vineyards, to covet, to 
sweat, to die and know no peace. I go to the 
sun. (He exits right across the plain with his 
wife and child trudging beside him. After he is 
off-stage comes the strumming of the harp and 
Ham’s voice happily singing: “I am as a young 
ram in the Spring.” It grows fainter and fainter 
until it is heard no more. The sun is low in 
the west. Noah sits looking tragically stern. All 
are ghastly calm. Mrs. Noah kneels upon the 
altar facing the mountain and she sobs contin- 
ually. 

We belong to Thee, O Jehovah 
We belong to Thee. 


She keeps repeating this to a slow curtain). 


CURTAIN 


THIS PLACE 
By DONALD JEFFREY HAYES 


This is the place where strangers meet 
And break a friendly bread 

This 1s the place where the wanderer 
May rest his weary head .. . 


This ts the place where songs are sung 
Where winter’s tales are told 

This is the place for broken dreams 
When they grow worn and old... 


This ts the place of As-You-Will 
Come in—abide—de part 

This is the place I offer you 

This place—my heart. . . . 


58 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


THREE POEMS 


By COUNTEE CULLEN 


A SONG NO GENTLEMAN 
WOULD SING TO ANY LADY 


There are some things I might not know 


Had you not pedagogued me so; 
And these I thank you for, 
Now never shall a piquant face 
Cause my tutored heart a trace 

Of anguish any more. 


Before your pleasure made me wise, 
A simulacrum of disguise 
Masked the serpent and the dove; 
That I discern now hiss from coo, 
My heart's full gratitude to you, 
Lady I had learned to love. 


Before I knew love well I sang 
Many a polished pain and pang, 
With proper bardic zeal; 
But now I know hearts do not break 
So easily, and though a snake 
Has made them wounds may heal. 


SELF CRITICISM 


Shall I go all my bright days singing, 
(A little pallid, a trifle wan) 

The failing note still vainly clinging 
To the throat of the stricken swan? 


Shall I never feel and meet the urge 
To bugle out beyond my sense 

That the fittest song of earth 1s a dirge, 
And only fools trust Providence? 


Than this better the reed never turned flute, 


Better than this no song, 
Better a stony silence, better a mute 
Mouth and a cloven tongue. 


EXTENUATION TO CERTAIN 
CRITICS 


Cry Shame upon me if you must, 
Shout Treason and Default, 

Say I betray a sacred trust 
Aching beyond this vault. 


I'll bear your censure as your praise, 


Yet never shall a clan 
Confine my singing to its ways 
Beyond the ways of man. 


No racial option narrows grtef,; 
Pain 1s no patriot; 

And sorrow braids her dismal leaf 
For all as lief as not. 

With blind sheep groping every hill 


Seeking an oriflamme, 


W hat shepherd heart would keep its fill 


For only the darker lamb? 


NEW LIGHTS ON AN 
OLD SONG 


By DoRoTHY SCARBOROUGH 


WAS giving a lecture on Negro Folk Songs in Denison, Texas, and was 
speaking of my fondness for one which is my favorite among the spiritu- 
als. At the conclusion of the lecture, I boarded an inter-urban car to 
return to Dallas, when a young girl who had been sent from Sherman to 
interview me sat down beside me. In the course of our conversation 
fs g she reported to me something that her brother, a missionary in Africa, 

had casually told her while he was at home on a recent furlough. It interested me so 

much that I asked her to write me a letter about it, in order that I might be sure of 
having the facts correctly fixed in my memory. Sherman, Texas, 
Here is her letter: November 30, 1927. 


Dear Dr. Scarborough: 

Below is a brief account of the origin of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” for which you asked last eve- 
ning on the Inter-urban. 

My brother, who is a missionary in the Bokuba Kingdom, Couge Belge, Africa, relates that as he 
was “on the trail’ one day in his hammock, the hammock boys began singing a song (in other language, of 
course, the tune of which was strangely familiar.) 

He inquired of one of them, “Who taught you that song?” 

“No one, chief. That song is as old as our tribe. It is a funeral dirge.” 

The tune was unmistakably that of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.’ It did not vary from the old South- 
ern air in the slightest. 

Under separate cover I am sending you a copy of my brother's little book “The Leopard Hunts Alone” 
of which I spoke. It is all too brief and contains only the suggestions of things he would have liked to say 
had he the opportunity. But maybe you will find in it a few facts of interest. 

Sincerely yours, 


(are 


SPEND 


(Signed) Catherine Wharton. 


I mean to write to Mr. Wharton in the hope of finding out if he got the words 
of the dirge. I should like to know if the parallelism extends . . . to actual language, 
as well as to theme and melody. 

Miss Wharton said that her brother told her that the Bokuba language had not 
been written down before the missionaries undertook the task, but that it is musical and 
well inflected. He has discovered in the tribal folk-lore a collection of fables which 
are almost identical with those of Aesop, and many stories similar to old Testament 
accounts. 

Some skilled musician, trained in Negro folk-song, should go to Africa and make 
a study of native songs, with the thought of discovering how much relation there is 
between specific Negro folk-songs found in America and African music. The results 
of such research would be extremely valuable. 

On the day after the letter reached me I visited the Booker T. Washington High 
School in Dallas, to hear the trained chorus of more than eight hundred voices sing 
a number of spirituals. Portia Washington Pittman is doing an admirable work in 
developing the musical talents of these young people, and in teaching them the value 
of their heritage of racial songs. I read the letter to the audience, and this daughter 
of Booker T. Washington expressed keen interest in this bit of information concerning 
the immemorial history of a song that everyone loves. I thought that others might 
like to know of it too. 


39 


LA PERLA NEGRA 


By EDNA WORTHLEY UNDERWOOD 


SAW her first in E/ Teatro Nacional, the splendid building which the 
Cubans erected in honor of their love of music and art, just as similarly 

) luxurious buildings—equally sumptuous and satisfying to the eye—have 

been erected throughout the cities of South America. 

PES \y It was in May and a night of grand opera. A new tenor of Mexican 

Cok blood was going to try to initiate a lasting rivalry with Caruso, by his 
of the song of tears in “Pagliacci.” 

In that audience of beautiful women, whose jewelled decolletage was heightened 
by white shoulders that shone like satin, by the piled up splendor of curls that were 
blacker than ebony, I found her. She arose upon my field of vision slowly almost 
imperceptibly, as a great slow-sailing ship swings into sight upon the disconcerting . 
levels of the sea. Or better, perhaps, I did not really see her, as that phrase is commonly 
understood, but instead I became aware of her, in the same way as in an art gallery 
a piece of silent marble impresses itself upon the senses. 

She sat a few seats in front of me, swathed in dull, white, dotted lace. On this 
night of heat she wore a high collar that reached in points behind her ears. She wore 
long sleeves of the same material, whose points partly covered her hands. For the rest 
the dress was old-fashioned—a basque, tightly gripped at the waist, and a long 
draped skirt,flowing into a train; in fact the sort of dress that the great portrait painters 
of France were painting in 1860. Not a jewel, not a flower did she wear, and on this 
night of heat she did not use a fan. But what astonishing splendor of line! She 
represented form such as Fantin Latour loved. 

A round, superbly poised head, whose short, waving hair was hidden in order not 
to cloud the outline. And she possessed the motionlessness, the nerveless repose of 
an animal. 

In the intermission, when the audience arose—in friendly Spanish fashion—to go 
below to the club room for an ice, I saw her face. She was a pale, grey Negress, with 
the faultless body of an Attic marble, and eyes in which there was no mind, no soul, 
eyes that were the misty, mellow-green of absinthe. And those astonishing eyes were 
framed in lashes that made me think of black palm-plumes, when the pulse of the 
sea shakes them. 

Her companion was as unusual as herself, an old, old man—a white man—well over 
seventy, and not a Spaniard. He was tall, faultlessly attired, evidently a great gentle- 
man, upon whom the salon life of a polished people had set its seal. The only thing 
aus bizarre, perhaps, was the matched emeralds of extraordinary size that fastened 

is Shirt. ' 

During the first part of the opera I did not see her speak, nor pay the slightest 
attention to what he said to her. Down below in the clubroom where the world was 
enjoying wines and ices, she was equally silent and impassive. Even when distinguished 
friends of the old man gathered about them, not once did I see her speak. She merely 
looked with eyes limpid and green, green as degenerate emeralds are green, or sea- 
water in the cold north. But she was by far the most distinguished figure in this 


elegant and aristocratic assembly. She represented majesty of line, and the insolence 
of indolent youth. 


See 


WS 


VR = ie: 


ah ey 
oh 


60 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 61 


vome nights later, in the crowded midnight parade upon the Prado, where all 
the races of the islands of the earth are mingled, under the languorous, yellow moon 
that hangs over seas, I saw them again. The old gentleman was making a pitiful 
attempt to hold himself erect, with the proud, easy exactness of youth. Beside him 
she walked—La Perla Negra—supple and sullen, walked like a panther. Tonight she 
wore grey lace the hue of her skin, and about her neck, ropes of pale green jade. 


I wondered what she thought, what she busied herself with in her mind, she who 
not only never spoke, but who seemed not even to listen. Forgetful of proud Spanish 
etiquette, I addressed my nearest neighbor. 

“Do you know who they are—that man and woman?” 

“Why yes—of course! He is Monsieur X—,” mentioning the name of a painter 
of Europe to whom the world had accorded honors for his art. ‘The woman is a 
Negress. He worships her for her beauty. He says that in the old days of his youth— 
in Paris—he created art. Now he is doing something different. He is living it. He 
spends his time in designing clothes for her. He dresses and redresses her like a doll. 
Day-long he feasts his eyes upon her, this living statue of grey marble. They live in 
that faded violet-tinted palace—in the great garden—not far from the Malecon.” 

Then this trembling old man was a modern Paris, still going on, on the ancient 
quest—Beauty. For it he had left home, country, fame, companionship, in his old age. 
What an artist was he who could feast upon it as upon a miraculous food, and live. 

But what was all this for her? Was she happy? Was she contented? Had she 
any interests, any pleasures, any personality. Did she ever think? And if she did, 
of what? The great genius, the incredibly sensitive artist who lived beside her, what 
was he to her? Within her was there anything superior to the instinct for trickery of 
the savage? 

In the early morning when I drove out to that surprising curve of blue water, 
which is called the Malecon, I passed their faded palace. She was walking in the 
garden and she wore apple-green and black. A figure in white linen was on the 
veranda. What subtlety of poetry, what penciled persistence of art was it, that made 
him dress her in coarse tinted laces, gauzes, and never in satin or silk? And what 
harmonies he achieved in these gowns he so busily planned! I drove on and forgot 
them, in looking at the old buildings that border the white, curving Malecon, buildings 
which, when super-imposed by distance, recalled to me vaguely Turner’s “Palace. of 
the Caesars.” 

The next morning, I drove to a beach outside the city, while yet the hour was 
early, and the tropic sun was kindly and not bitter. When I reached the beach and the 
blue haze of the ocean, I saw another car. The old artist, immaculate in white linen, 
was lounging in his limousine, while La Perla Negra, in a bathing suit of dull surfaced 
white silk, was in the water. Upon the wet, moulded silk the blue sea sent its shivers. 
She was a statue of the dead, antique world come back to life. Her body, however, 
was not that of the Greeks and Romans. Its racial heritage was different, but it was 
of a fineness equally great. The astonishing grey-whiteness of her skin was one that 
might not belong to a Caucasian race. By blending and interbreeding it had come 
up for slow generations from ancestors scattered among all the islands of these blue, 
disconcerting, magic seas. 

I watched her swim far out, out where sailing vessels were, which black, greasy 
Negroes were loading. Sometimes their boat-songs the wind swept over to our ears. 
Their huge, brutal, semi-naked bodies were within eye-shot—and their gestures. At 
length he called to her to come back, somewhat impatiently it seemed, explaining that 
the sun was getting high, and that it was time to go within. As she stepped out of the 
water to walk toward the limousine, and came straight toward us, I saw a change in 


62 EBONY AND WOPAzZz 


her. The usually dull, cold eyes were blazing like the burnished levels of the sea. 
She moved with a great vigor, a great joy, as if in the depths of her soul, the fire of the 
morning burned. A waiting maid wrapped her hastily in a white robe of rough wool. 
As they started to drive away, she looked back again, toward the sea, threw her head 
back with a savage gesture as if freeing herself from something, and for the first time, 
I saw her laugh. Her laugh was unpleasant. It was cruel and wild. 

Some weeks later I saw the old artist promenading alone at night upon the Prado. 
Again my curiosity got the better of me. 

“Why is he alone?” I asked. “What has become of La Perla Negra?” 

‘“Haven’t you heardr” 

“No. How could IP” 

“Tt was in the paper.” 

‘“What paper?” 


“La Prensa.” 
“T did not see it,’ I admitted regretfully. 


“She ran away with a black Negro boatman—a regular Senegambian—to Haiti, 
the black man’s paradise. She did not take any of her beautiful and expensive clothes. 
She was tired of them. She left them all. She went away bare footed, in a long, white, 
cotton shirt, just such as island Negresses wear. 

“He was inconsolable for a while. Now he is picking up and declared that he 
is going to create again—paint again—become again the great artist that he was. He 
says, you can not live art and create art at the same time. He ought to know. He has 
given it a trial.” 

She had gone back to the wild undisciplined life of her race. She must have dif- 
ferent things. She must have the heated dance under the stars—at night—and the 
fight that followed. She must feel hunger, discomfort and weariness. She must feel 
upon her faultless, grey-marble shoulders, the overseer’s lash. She must burn up her 
youth, her beauty in a frenzy of feverish life; in toil, in the brittle dawn, by the edge 
of the cane fields. She must have the fierce things of her blood. 

Not yet was the white man’s life, with its weakening trivialities, for her. 

She had escaped from that consuming disease which we call civilization. 


mm OZPW NNdH OOH HO OFPOMZ MH wo 


(Translated from the Spanish of José M. Salaverria) v 


BY DoroTHY R. PETERSON 


\ DO not know thru what strange vagaries I was first induced into becoming 
an habitueé of that particular tea room, as with polite exaggeration it 
was called, and which, in reality, was no more than a modest eating 
place foundering along the extreme end of a cosmopolitan beach resort. 
‘The tea that they served there was tasteless. The only thing worthy 
Bat OES, : of admiration was the name of the establishment, emblazoned in red 
letters on a large sign over the arched doorway: At the Charm of Russta. 

Perhaps I responded to the call of the name or perhaps I had been attracted by the 
singularity of that deserted corner on the open coast. The fact is, however, that I began 


63 


64 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


to repeat my visits to that motley and scantily furnished eating house, which did indeed 
display in a. quite picturesque manner, a series of promising symbols: flags, colored 
lanterns, huge crayon posters, cubist pictures and other like accessories. Everything 
tended to show that on that one spot there had been concentrated a small bit of modern 
Russia. The lure of advertising is so great that there were always to be found a few 
benevolent tourists who attended the “‘thé-dansants” which were held every afternoon 
in that paint daubed hall of At the Charm of Russia. 

The charm reduced itself to a handful of girls who performed the duties of 
waitresses, attired in the costumes of Spanish peasant girls, and to a Jazz Band. This 
jazz band was far from thrilling. It was hardly more than mediocre. But it was 
sufficiently tuneful to lure some Spanish and French couples and a few stray Americans 
into the abandon of a fox trot or Charleston. As I never dance at all, I was limited 
merely to listening to the music of the jazz band which at times, does not fail to interest 
me. I was also entertained by the rhythmic and clownish gestures which the poor devils 
who made up the orchestra executed while playing. Particularly the Negro! 

He was an authentic and magnificent Negro.. That is, he was a completely black 
Negro, of an unmistakable and unredeemable black. He might have come forth from 
the very depths of the Guinea jungle. But no, his home was in the United States of 
North America, because at moments, when the tempo of the music so required, the 
Negro would utter some words in English, as a sort of refrain, while he manipulated 
the complicated hardware of which his instruments consisted, a bass drum, a kettle 
drum, a triangle, cymbals and even, I believe, a fog horn. And with his enormous 
mouth and thick red lips, the Negro knew how to intercalate at the proper and oppor- 
tune moment, a series of delirious guffaws completely Negroesque in sound, and which 
to me, (why should I deny it?) were extremely pleasing. And the truth is that after 
repeatedly staring at him and studying him, I confess that I became completely 
fascinated by the Negro of the jazz band. 

One night I happened to go for supper to a chop house nearby, where, altho 
nothing else seemed worthy of recommendation, they served a common variety of very 
delicious fish soup. Some foreigners, who had also discovered the secret of that mar- 
vellous soup 4 la Marseille, used to frequent the same chop house, which indeed offered 
few other comforts. On this night at a table next to mine sat a heavily built man. 
Suddenly the man turned and faced me, and I could not suppress a cry of surprise. 
The Negro from the jazz band! 

But he was no longer a Negro. He was as white as you or I or anyone else. So 
great was my surprise that I exclaimed with incomprehensive naiveté: 

“But, weren’t you black this afternoon?” 

This discovery of mine produced no pleasure on the other man. I realized it by his 
expression, the play of the muscles around his mouth, the whole gesture of repugnance. 
He repressed his annoyance, however, and made haste to answer me courteously: 

“It is true that I was black this very afternoon, and now I am completely white. 
But the surprising part is your discovery of it. I flattered myself that I played my part 
betterne en 

“And the flattery is well deserved. You may continue to believe that your dis- 
sembling is well done. You make up marvellously well as a Negro. But I am a writer 
and my habit of close observation has enabled me to pierce your disguise. My interest 
in writing has caused me to study your physique and your unusual gestures. You, your- 
self must realize that my curiosity is not difficult to understand, because after all, a man 
who disguises himself deliberately and intentionally as a Negro is not an everyday 
occurrence. It is easily comprehensive that one may wish to change his personality, 
but it is always in the sense of improvement, rather than ina debasing or lowering sense. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 65 


i could understand your pretending to the social status of a bankrupt Russian prince, 
but it is past my comprehension that you should be content to be black.” 

Then the man who wanted to be a Negro opened his heart to me, as they say, and 
began to unwind a skein of reflections that stupefied me. 

Then listen, sir. At one time in my life I thought as you do. I believed that it 
was a man’s duty to continue striving along an upward path in the pursuit of human 
perfection, continually striving to become more respected, more renowned and more 
powerful. It is that for which the majority of people strive, and that, in short, is what 
explains the progress of the human race. I, like others, aspired to become more. I 
also proposed to lift myself a few steps in the social scale and raise myself in rank and 
position. Here, where you see me, I have had conferred upon me the degree of Doctor 
of Laws; I prepared myself for the position of a political orator; I made my entry 
into politics; I was on the point of becoming an office-holder, a representative of the 
people; I even aspired for diplomatic appointment. No one can say that I did not 
do all that was humanly possible to further that ambition, which in its natural states, 
inspires man to the improvement and enhancement of his personality; but Luck seemed 
always against me! Finally, one day while I was smoking innumerable cigarettes 
close to a formidable Negro in a jazz band, (that one was undeniably a Negro) I con- 
ae this unheard of idea. Why not? I could make as good a Negro as anyone 
else. 

“And did you become easily resigned to this tragedy?” 

“Of what tragedy are you speaking tome? There is no tragedy. On the contrary, 
as soon as I had converted myself into a Negro, I discovered that Life had assumed 
an aspect of ineffable facility. I was paid well and punctually, and the owners of 
the business, as well as the leaders of orchestras found it easier to get along with an 
intelligent Negro than with the ordinary Negro of the jazz band type. My disguise 
amused them. But no one has ever discovered my greatest disguise.” 

“Will you permit me to ask you?” 

“Why certainly. You have made a certain sympathetic appeal to me and I am 
going to disclose to you my greatest secret. But do not imagine it to be any complicated 
nor prodigous mystery. It consists of reversing the whole tide of effort so that while 
everyone else is straining with all his might towards rising in the scale of Life, you, 
pretending unawareness, employ your strength, your intelligence and your entire re- 
sources in just “holding on.” Do you understand? If, instead of “holding on”, one 
wishes to lower his position, then the success is even more complete. Then Life becomes 
converted into perfect ease. Nothing upsets one, nothing presents difficulties. In a 
single word, one finds himself dominating Life, instead of, as in the case of most men, 
being dominated by Life. Life in its usual aspect is an overwhelming force! You, 
who are a writer, will have to confess that you find yourself inferior before your Art, 
and that the enormity of the difficulties in your Art grind you down, just as tho’ the 
whole world were bearing all its weight upon your life. Imagine, if you can, the sense 
of liberty and of ease which you would feel, if, with all your present knowledge and 
experience, you should decide to engage in a very humble trade. The world would say 
that you had “lowered” yourself, descended in the social scale. But no—you would 
then be master of your life and of your work, just as now you are the servant of your 
life and of your Art. But I fear that I have not given you sufficiently convincing 
arguments... .” eee 

‘“Frankly,—I do not enthuse greatly over the gift of the secret which you have 
disclosed to me. The disguise of one’s own personality somewhat disgusts me.” 

“Why? since everyone disguises his own personality—since everything is a lie. 
The point is that other people disguise themselves under a mask of superiority—they 


66 EBON Y CAIN D FOZ 


falsify in order to be something more. And so their lies are more blameworthy than 
mine. The world is a marketplace of falsefaces. The rabble pretend to be noble, the 
fools wise, the blackguards honest, and so on. For a few months I lived surrounded 
by circus people, people who practiced deliberate pretense, and I look upon that 
period as perhaps the best of my life. My side partner, a pretty blond girl, both young 
and sweet dispositioned, did the part of “wild woman” in one of the side shows of 
the circus. There was nothing at all wild about her, not even in her character. An 
intimate friend of mine, whom I loved as a brother, did the “strongest man in the 
world” stunt and made a great deal of money by lifting bodily—weights of 100 kilos, 
which in point of fact weighed scarcely 12 pounds. I myself was made up as a Negro. 
And I assure you that behind our disguises and our reversed personalities we lived 
extremely well; not only happy but with an interest in Life. 

“And how did that little partnership of ‘pretenders’ dissolve?” 

“In a quite natural manner. My friend, the one whom I loved as a brother, ran 
away with the girl who was my partner and that ended our happy little partnership.” 

On hearing such a humorous ending to this sentimental episode, I could not refrain 
from bursting out laughing and then I exclaimed: 

“You see, your system sometimes fails.” 

The counterfeit Negro hastened to interrupt me. 

“No, the system has not failed. It was I who had failed to apply the system. [ 
was to blame for everything. And my mistake lay precisely in the fact that I had 
forgotten for the moment the essential nature of the system. I became too ambitious. 
I wished to possess for myself alone a lovely, young and charming woman—which plan 
would coincide with the scheme of aspiring to something better. I had aspired to be 
loved alone—loved for myself—and that was already too much. Cured finally by self- 
chastisement, I have not again been negligent. Since then, in love as in everything 
else, I practice my disguise, my pretence, by abasing myself, and I go off to look for 
those humbler caresses which are within reach of the whole community. . . .” 

I was thoroughly stunned, when confronted by that intelligent man who was con- 
structing for his own use and mortification, so strange and dispiriting a philosophy of 
life. But he gave no signs of being discouraged. The following afternoon I went to 
take tea again at the picturesque salon of At the Charm of Russia, and there stood my 
Negro. He seemed blacker than ever in the midst of his horrible set of instruments ; 
and his guttural guffaws, I might say, were still more Senegalese and raucous than on 
other afternoons. He crossed a wink of understanding with me, and then made a 
valiant attack on the cymbals. .. .I left the tea room almost immediately and since then 
I have never seen him again. Who knows in what obscure corners of our planet, the 
tide of his extravagant destiny may have swept him! 


IDOLATRY 
By ARNA BONTEMPS 


You have been good to me,I give you this: 

The arms of lovers empty as our own, 

Marble lips sustaining one long kiss 

And the hard sound of hammers breaking stone. 


ForI will build a chapel in the place 

Where our love died and I will journey there 
To make a sign and kneel before your face 
And set an old bell tolling on the arr. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 67 


To 
CLARISSA SCOTT DELANY 


By ANGELINA W. GRIMKE 


I 
She has not found herself a hard pillow 
And a long hard bed, 
A chilling cypress, a wan willow 
For her gay young head .. . 
These are for the dead. 


2 
Does the violet-lidded twilight die 
And the piercing dawn 
And the white clear moon and the night-blue sky. . . 
When they are gone? 


Does the shimmering note 
In the shy, shy throat 
Of the swaying bird? 


4 
O, does children’s laughter 
Live not after 
It ts heard? 

5 


Does the dear, dear shine upon dear, dear things, 
In the eyes, on the hair, 

On waters, on wings . . 

Live no more anywhere? 


6 
Does the tang of the sea, the breath of frail flowers, 
Of fern crushed, of clover, 
Of grasses at dark, of the earth after showers 
Not linger, not hover? 


Does the beryl in tarns, the soft orchid in haze, 
The primrose through tree-tops, the unclouded jade 
Of the north sky, all earth’s flamings and russets and grays 
Simply smudge out and fade? 
8 


And all loveliness, all sweetness, all grace, 
All the gay questing, all wonder, all dreaming, 
They that cup beauty that veiled opaled vase, 
Are they only the soul of a seeming? 
e 
O, hasn’t she found just a little, thin door 
And passed through and closed it between? 
O, aren’t those her light feet upon that light floor, 
. That her laughter? . . . O, doesn’t she lean 
As we do to listen? . . . O, doesn’t 1t mean 
She 1s only unseen, unseen? 


“The lynx says, ‘I am fleet of foot,’ 
But the plains say, ‘We are wide’.” 
—An African Proverb. 


| Wiad ont de mond cen ried vol sree on lug gebvogene 
 Succht. Mooren ! heil breckt dvor de wol : 
C etch « OPER DWERL BY brecké dvor oe 


bg Pe wemn Dy ke ded. _ 


- IACOBUS 10 


Od fee rly he Ghet ie hae caprret,deneMoor? i 
eS ‘ a Sie C7 ¢ 4 ee + 

SG taal be re ee sedege eagen a 

Ey a eo oo Se : 7 oe a 
Noe Sckt welepreckondhecd op 2a lippen door 2 


€ 


ee 


ee 


ees g Ss : Po Fazeke Sense. 
ANNES ELIZA CAPITEIN. V.D.M. op D'ELMINA. 
Doct oe wm landgenoct xy pee eee prcehen. ; 
On ake Out doom sun' Yeast on hae alpart ven iieean 
| Balin boctmaardigheis aan duczend wtibhen breockon, 
| Op Qed het 2akeg Ccht atch pret Pe ee, 

ken heen: I Ex i oY ten REILAND ee ib der hee rere Ly. 

— ts RADUS ANTHONY SwHGHUIZEN, 


i 


| 
{ 
d 


A Mezzo-Tint from a Painting by 
P. VAN DYK DEL 
—Courtesy of Arthur A. Schomburg. 


JUAN LATINO, MAGISTER LATINUS 


(From the Journal of the search in Spain for fragments of Negro Life.) 
By ARTHUR A. SCHOMBURG 


S]OR several hours the snow capped 
mountain top of the Sierra Nevada 
was plainly visible as we journeyed on- 
¢4| ward and upward on the Rosinante ex- 
press toward the city of Granada. The 
train came to a full stop. We landed, passed 
through a veritable bedlam and picked on the 
hotel agents a resting place more for the name than 
for its known comforts. After resting we walked 
to the University grounds, saw the closed gates and 
walls kalsomined so often that the layers in sections 
were peeling off. It was dusk and there was a pas- 
toral quiet. We retraced our steps through narrow 
highways and alleys to the Cathedral. Some form 
of religious ceremony was on. The voices and the 
silvery tones from the organ filled the vaulted edi- 
fice with a vast religious fervor. People here and 
there prayed to their favorite saints; others like my- 
self curiously contemplated the solemnity and gran- 
deur of the place. Through the warm colors of the 
stained and figured glasses light poured in like a 
flood. We walked up the threadbare steps to the 
great organ, passing a small urchin pumping air 
into the bellows as many others have done year 
on year. 


Here in a grilled enclosure were the sar- 
cophagi of Ferdinand and Isabella, who aided Co- 
lumbus’ discovery of America. There they were, 
amid their pomp and circumstance, seemingly en- 
joying the perfect even if endless night. And finally, 
again to the University. I was seeking facts and 
information on the life of Juan Latino, the Negro 
who held a professorship at the University as early 
as 1550. The secretary informed me that Profes- 
sor Ocete had written a thesis on his life as partial 
fulfilment for his doctorate degree in philosophy 
and that he would be glad to introduce me to this 
man, the holder of the chair of paleontology. Mean- 
time the secretary introduced me to the librarian 
and I had the great joy of seeing a copy of Juan 
Latino’s own book on the library shelf of his alma 
mater. 

An attendant brought me before Catedratico 
Ocete and I was invited into his study, where I 
explained my mission to Granada. I recited the 
hearsay of my school days when persons remarked 
that so and so wasn’t as Lati—taken from the verse 
that alludes to Latino in Cervantes’ “Don Quijote 
de la Mancha.” I had crossed the Atlantic because 
I was personally satisfied that there was no better 
place to uncover this information than in Latino’s 
own home and under his own vine and figtree. After 
my recital, the learned Professor pulled open the 
drawer of his desk and brought forth a small quarto 
volume which on inspection was the brochure al- 


ready alluded to by the secretary of the University. 
It was an exhaustive research, gathered from frag- 
mentary facts, and buttressed with trustworthy 
references. 


Later he produced an early copy of Latino’s work 
from the Granada University Library, a copy sim- 
ilar to the one in the series which the Ticknor col- 
lection of Spanish Literature possessed, but vastly 
more beautiful in comparison. 

What a wonderful city, the Moors called it 
Paradise Valley, rich with a mellow history and 
hidden far away up in the foothills of the Sierra 
Nevada mountains. 


Here in Granada during those stormy days when 
the Abderraman kings were lords of all they sur- 
veyed, there were among the people many undiluted 
black men. It was my pleasure to walk leisurely 
through and admire the spacious avenue named 
after the Gran Capitan and recall that he was 
the father of the master of Juan Latino, to pass by 
the street where his slave lived, the school house 
and Royal College where he was a tutor, the 
church where he knelt in humility to his real Mas- 
ter, where he was married to Dona Ana de Carlobar, 
where his children were baptized, and where event- 
ually after life’s task, he was buried in St. Ann’s 
Church. 


It is a pleasure to refer to Professor Ocete’s 
monograph “El Negro Juan Latino Biographical 
and Critical Essay” (Granada 1925, 4 to 94 pp.). 
I view it with a keen desire to see the booklet trans- 
lated into the English language to help stimulate 
our own men by the life and services this eminent 
man has left to posterity. 


Catedratico Antonio Marin Ocete of the faculty 
of the University of Granada is a very charming 
young man, whose indefatigable knowledge is 
highly reflected by this work. If we accept, as we 
cannot otherwise do, the full explanation of our 
author, it is not illogical to suppose that the docks of 
Sevilla one day received Catino with his mother, 
and surely when he was of tender age. To affirm 
this Ocete begins by denying as notoriously false 
the affirmation of Salazar that he came to Spain 
when in his twelfth year. When we study him at 
close range, what is strange to his personality is 
the complete adaptation to so distinctly different 
an environment, the perfect formation of his char- 
acter and intelligence in plain civilization to reach 
the height not only of a cultured man but a sage, 
having a perfect knowledge of languages and classi- 
cal literature. An eminent master and above all a 
Latin poet extraordinarily fruitful. Only by his 
living there from birth under most promising cir- 


69 


70 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


cumstances can we explain it and yet admire such 
surprising results. ‘Thus it must have been when 
mother and son were bought by a trafficker who 
sold them at Baena at the castle owned by the 
Count de Cabra, Don Luis Fernando de Cordoba 
and his wife Dona Elvira, only daughter of the 
Grand Capitan where he played during his infancy 
with the son of the Duke Don Gonzalo. He was 
known when a boy by the name of Juan de Sesa, a 
musician of ability, singer, organist, a player of the 
lute and the harp. As he grew to manhood his 
silence and strict application to details were noted ; 
he helped his master’s son both with his personal 
duties and in his studies. “The son found in his 
black companion an apt and intelligent fellow. In 
time the master rewarded his charge and sent him 
to the same University where his son won his aca- 
demic degree. Juan Sesa was afterwards known as 
Latino who has written his thanks “cum ipso a 
rudibus omnibus liberaribus artibus institutos et 
doctus.” 

Charles V, the instigator and founder of the 
University of Granada afterward opened by the 
Archbishop Hernando de Talavera by Bull and 
Pastoral Letter from Pope Clement VII was re- 
ceived on July 14th, 1531, conferring the same 
rights and privileges granted previously to the uni- 
versities of Bologna, Paris and Salamanoa. In the 
MSS book of sermons of Rector Nicholas de la 
Rosa, it is stated Juan Latino received his B. A. 
during the year 1546, before the Archbishop, the 
Chancillor, the Count of ‘Tendilla and many other 
gentlemen. His age was about twenty-eight. It is 
grateful to commend Ocete for having successfully 
located the minutes having the entry of the thirty- 
nine candidates who received their degree in ‘“‘artium 
et philosphie facultate sub disciplina Rvdi. Dmi 
magistri Benedicte peco” it was duly signed by the 
learned dignitaries who were empowered by Royal 
Decree to examine candidates, and attested by the 
notary Johan de Frias and entered in Book No. 1 
de Claustros folio 110. 

The year Latino graduated (1546) from the 
University Archbishop Pedro Guerrero had taken 
possession of the See, and gave him decided protec- 
tion, influenced his page, Carlobal, to desist from 
opposing the Negro for having married his sister, 
and contrived through his friend the Duke of Sesa 


that the servitude of the Negro should terminate. - 


When the chair of Latin of the Sacred Cathedral 
Church School was vacant due to the death of the 
master Mota, he decided to place his candidate in 
the person of Juan Latino. As soon as the vacancy 
became known there was no end of learned men 
who were aspirants for the honor. On the 8th of 
August, 1556, while the Cathedral canons were in 
session licentiate Villanueva entered and said he 
knew there was a vacancy in the Royal College and 
it was not proper to let Juan Latino have it when 
there were so many priests who could fill the posi- 
tion. The Archbishop was inflexible to the 
undercurrents of opposition and at the beginning 
of the year the very reverend Pedro de Vivero, Dean 


of the Sacred Church and Rector of the University 
named Juan Latino for the chair of Latin Gram- 
mar. Professor Ocete states that notwithstanding 
the fact noted in the printed work of Latino where 
he is put down as holding a chair in the University, 
the item is wrong because no such office existed. An 
exhaustive examination of the documents available 
only shows him to have filled the office noted in the 
Royal College. Opposition continued because Lat- 
ino was only an ordinary bachelor of arts, but when 
on November 3lst, 1556 he was granted his Mas- 
ter of Arts, all seemed to be smooth sailing. The 
Royal College was a building erected beside the 
University and next to the Archepiscopal palace. 
Here was to be seen in those days familiar faces of 
well known students, ecclesiastical dignitaries, aco- 
lytes, Moorish persons, grave and lettered young 
men, attracted by the fame of a foreign master— 
a Negro who graced his chair—the equal of the 
best of his epoch. 

The celebration of the feast of St. Lucar was 
one of the three principal events of Granada—the 
Rector, the Chancillor, doctors, licentiates of the 
University and the students from all the colleges 
were present on this occasion to hear the address 
“quam principium appellare solent” from the lips 
of Juan Latino, Magister Latinus.’ “It is to be re- 
gretted, says Ocete, “that this Latin oration deliv- 
ered this day, unforgetable, when all Granda 
turned out spontaneously to hear him and tender 
a charming demonstration of respect and admiration, 
has not reached us, for I believe this example 
of his prose promised a free style more elegant 
than his verses.” 

The learned Ocete in a comparative illustration 
on letters and philosophy of Europe through the 
humanists F. A. Wolf of Cottigen and C. O. Mul- 


ler of Berlin says “After three centuries the minds ~ 


of these men reached the same conclusion of the 
Spanish grammarians, with which in some way or 
other Juan Latino was much concerned.” 

Latino was a most remarkable individual. 
Through his own efforts against all prejudice—dur- 
ing his period of servitude in the ducal home 
of his master until his marriage with a lady of 
quality—he became a distinguished person in Gran- 
ada. When he finished his studies he climbed to 
the first and highest professorship in the Royal 
College. His further studies brought him to higher 
esteem since he was, in his day, the best versed in 
the knowledge of classical antiquity and ancient 
languages, which he knew perfectly well. During 
his famous lifetime he published three tomes of 
Latin verses. Through his influence a generation 
of original authors and translators were developed 
that gave birth to the Poetical School of Granada. 

Don Juan de Austria the natural son of Philip 
II upon his triumphal entry into the city of Gran- 
ada was carried away with the epigrammatic in- 
scriptions that adorned the arches erected to com- 
memorate the defeat of the Turks at the battle of 
Lepanto. The poems were the work of Juan Latino 
the Magister Latinus. It is noted that frequently 


EL OREY: 


met O Rewinto por parte L-vot el ALscjlvo Tua 

AYER Latino Cashedration de Goanmeics on La 
Tie Voniverfided oe Granad onos fie heehs reba- 
bi pig tian, gus yas vursdes comp jefly ya libre en 
Cow Yexfe Latino, gre rraraszea del ncfiim tere deb 
Screnifome Principe don Fernanda vueftro 
many ctroy my onadahyry de les colae del nacflra my fantto 
padre Pro Pops Quinta: > dela victaris que Divs me fire fedex 
faclorwds de nos dav contra los eneniizos denuefira Sanéts Fe 
Carhalicacel qual era muy Vtily muy prouechofo jararodu lw 
profefiones : faplic andonas os mandaffemos dav licencia para lo 
peter imprimir. yp: tuilezta por veynre alias , 9 coma la auefira 
mavced facffc, fossa! yifts por loc de nucftro conejo, ¥ como por 


_ famandada fe bixioron lasdilivenciat,que la pregmatict hoy nos 


hocks fobrela tmprefeion delos bros difpone, Por os haxer bien 


© gerced fue acords 1, jue deniacios mindar da? ofa nectira ce 


dulaenls dichs raxon,T por La prefente vas damas licencia y fa 
caltad, part gue por tempo de nchn aitos primero, fouten tes gue 
corran jy fequearen dejde elit dela data dfts nuaflra carts, 
yos, ols peefond que Vierflro poder outere fiodals ominneri je ven 
der el dichs fibro, giedbifa fe haze mencion . V per la prefenre 
damos licencia yface't ul, a0 etlguter tmbreffor de ellos nucftces 
Reynos,que vos naubraved spars ijuc por ella vex fy ovede-m= 
Pccd 


Facsimile 
Privilege to print the first book of poetry by a Negro granted by the King of Spain at San Lorenzo 


Facsimile 


Title page of Juan La- 
tino’s epigrammatic book 
on Philip, King of Spain, 
Pius V., Don Juan of 
Austria, the naval battle 
of Lepanto, printed at 
Granada, 1573. 


Garnata flud:ofe ado 
lefcentia nodtra- 

+ torem. Libri “ 
ae 

duo. 

(Cyvm REGIA MALESTATIS PRIVIEEGYO. 

Me Cote RON Ot te AR ie 

i i Be Ex offiina Hazonis de Ment. 

: Ann 157 ; 

ig ia edibus Loanais Diax Bibliopale in Vi ‘antle Maria, 


s 


$ 

Pronir con anc de dnge (Gr ontoc que fe vend, fo ray i i 
Bar atl meffre cor J oopoorgise fer utpecen h original qe Ysa . 

tk | 


the 30th day of October, 157 


AD CATHOLICYM, 


PURITER FI- INVICTISS! 
PHILIPPVM DEL GRATIA Hi 


niarsma Regem , de falicifima ferenifiumt 
= . 


FerdinandiPrincipis natinttate,ept- 
grammatum liber. 
x5 


: 3 
seDEQVE SANCTISSIMI 


Quinti Romane Ecclefiz Pontificis fummi, 
rebus, & affectibus erga Philippum 


% » Regem Chriftianiflimum, 
. Liber vnus. 


ne AVSTRIAS CARMEN, DE E.X- 


CELLENTISSIME DOMINI. D. To 
ab Auftria, Caroll Quinti fly, ac I hilsppt ink 


fratris,ve bene £eflasin anctoria mirabilreinfdem Phi 
A : 


Herfus perfidos Turcas parta, dd lleftrsf- 


R enerendiffunum. oe. : 
ie 


hippie 
— fi in s pariter oF 
ekjuma Dexa Prafidem, ac pro P 
lippo militie prefect Per Ma- 


giftrum loannem Latinum 


PUAN 


static el pre 


at LAOS MR 


AMCOLES BSH Nh 


orth ? ; 

CWO AK yy at ads ressahiflontes, ee 
H 

Eds fucnes.y paflicias 


S.PAHIAPES Ge 
+ 


i i . 
RES AAV IVES, F GLAIMALIOS F 


todale cid eles, yel 
TEGR 


: ; : 
5 muefires Reyruss {hom 


gee pee neety } ‘, 
of; PALOS GUC APE JOR COME A (0S OE 
oO 3 


gue ves avidenyy cunplan efta nucfins cdele gre 


1 : 
“Yor DA EOROS.F CONT LA cl tenor. forma della Yes ne Vapan pals 


foam CARMCHTAR YP DE pa fjar » per alvuria wi. 


SHEVA SO [ON 
nueflrs mervced,y de dre x nil maraxedi par Lene ofles POY A, 
Fecha en fant Lorengo el real , ctreynra dias del mies de Oflabre 
de mil y quinientes y jetenta y dos ahus, 


TO EL™REY. 


Por mandado defu At avefiad. 


winsania de Evalfos 


Ze 


MV M 
SP A- 


Pll 


aris 
scliffime 


72 EBONY -ANDSTOPAZ 


at the table of the Prince were seated two Negroes, 
Juan Latino was one and priest Christopher de 
Meneses of the Order of Santo Domingo stationed 
at Granada, was the other. It is said Don Juan 
de Austria found great pleasure in the company of 
these two men whose witticism and_ literature 
made them welcome guests at his festive board. 

I had the pleasure of examining Latino’s other 
two books of Latin verses at the National Library 
at Madrid through the courtesy of the Director. 
The poetical works of this writer and scholar are 
represented by three tomes. ‘The first was printed 
by Hugo de Mena in Granada during the year 
1573, is eulogistic and deals with the birth of the 
Prince, with the marriage of Philip II to Mary of 
Portugal, and with their son who was born in the 
year 1571, the presumptive heir to the throne 
named Fernando, whose birth Granada celebrated 
with joy. Juan Latino who was the local poet, 
wrote epigrammatic verses for the occasion. ‘The 
poems on the Pope and the city during his times 
are also included in this tome. 

His poem on the “Austradis libri duo” is an epic 
poem on the battle of Lepanto and it is the first 
printed work of the kind to commemorate the naval 
victory. It is pleasing to read the critical judg- 
ment of Ocete on the poetical merit of this obscure 
writer. “The arduous task has given ample proof 
of the author’s facility to express himself, not a 
defective verse nor an incorrect description, when 
the inspiration does not shine the interest lags, yet 
the form is impeccable. Without doubt, from 
among his works this is worthy of modern re-print- 
ing. Perhaps this may be premature but when our 
humane culture is more elevated, a discreet selection 


from among his poems, if not all, will be read with 
pleasure and delight. Not a word more nor an 
idea less, the verses are exact and precise, like fine 
steel with all the strength yet with all ductibility 
and often with inspiration without artifices to give 
exact tone, measure and softness, but awfully real, 
the idea of death. The whole book can be summed 
up as the work of a historian who was also a poet.” 


His second volume of Latin verses was written 
to lament in panegyrics the re-burial services on the 
occasion of the transmittal of the royal bodies to 
the Pantheon erected by Philip II and known as 
the Monastery of the Escorial. In this work our 
author included the epitaphs composed for the 


tablets and other objects used to convey the re- 


mains in pomp from Granada. ‘This work was 


printed during the year 1576. 


In his third and last volume, he devoted his pen 
exclusively to sing the praises of the ducal house 
of Sesa Don Gonzalo Fernandez de Cordoba. It 
was his personal tribute to the house that gave him 
all he received. He wished to let the world know 
his benefactors. The imprint bears the year 1585 
and the only known copy is at Madrid. 


There is pleasant satisfaction to know that in 
the pages of Spanish literature the name of Juan 
Latino will be further enhanced and remembered 
through the excellent work of Antonio Marin 
Ocete, quite unlike Sir William Maxwell-Stirling 
who in his life of Don Juan de Austria and George 
Ticknor, who in his “History of Spanish Litera- 
ture” (Vol. III, p. 492, N. Y. 1869) have delegated 
the volumes of the Latin scholar to a foot-note in 
their respective monumental works. 


AND ONE SHALL LIVE IN TWO 


By JONATHAN H. Brooks 


Though he hung dumb upon her wall 
And was so very still and small— 

A miniature, a counterpart, 

Yet did she press him to her heart 

On countless, little loving trips, 

And six times pressed him to her lips! 
As surely as she kissed him six, 

As sure as sand and water mix, 

Sure as canaries sweetly sing, 

And lilies come when comes the spring, 
The two have hopes for days of bliss 
When four warm lips shall meet in kiss, 
Four eyes shall blend to see as one, 

Four hands shall do what two have done, 
Two sorrow-drops will be one tear— 
And one shall live in two each year. 


Sebastian Gomez was known as the “Mulatto de Murillo.” During his earlier life, he was a slave 
purchased to grind the pigments for the colors used by the great master. His talent was discovered by 
Murillo and he was freed to become a pupil. For nearly a hundred years certain of the paintings of this 
Negro of Spain were mistaken for those of Murillo. 

rs 


“JESUS TIED TO A COLUMN” : By Sebastian Gomez 


This picture came from the Convent of the Cupuchinos. Brother Fray Angel de Leon 
claims it is this painter’s work in his first historical book where most notable events in 
the convent of San Francisco of Sevilla are noted. 


“THE SACRED FAMILY” 


By Sebastian Gomez 


In the Treasury Room of 
the Basilica of Sevilla. 


hipgon 


“IMMACULATE CONCEPTION” 


By Sebastian Gomez 


In the possession of an anti- 
quarian in the city of Sevilla. 


DMEZ (le mulatre e Maurslto)._ 101 Sa Conception de la Vierge (au Musée de Sé il 


“THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION” By Sebastian Gomez 


In the Museo Provincial de Sevilla, Spain. 


TEMPLE Door 


ZOUENOULA Mask, 14TH CENTURY 


From the Barnes 
Foundation Collection 


of African Art 


Courtesy of Dr. Albert C. Barnes 


Skice’ 
rid Calf spots 
Ieliverer Gear: : 


| ehorm ous Weight; - 
to repeat, 
tthe Gop-Heap mech 
en was reconcil’d ) 
in the Delert wild 
ii what new Devotion glo vs, 
he rapa "d Soul o *eiflows 
slike Saviow’s Glory bent, 
veh of Rie Heart's 3 intent, 
hae nore, 


=3 


Won to ow 
hn of Wo: 

1 iis Can-ch, be given, 

for Hosen. ; : 

yphet ; we the Stroke deplore, 
. in warning Valdes no more : 
oe aes huth exch manning Tongue, 

e which iitbices my oe : 
a oe auc <t Ghia 5 


oe Davs, 
: 


Phils Whe ealicy. 


is Shop in Marigeran eh-Serces, 773, 


A little known poem by Phillis W heat- 
ley, not included in her collected poems. 


TO A GENTLEMAN, ON: HIS VOYAGE TO 
GREAT BRITAIN FOR THE RECOVERY 
OF HIS HEALTH 


By PHILLIS WHEATLEY 


While others chant of gay Elysian scenes, 

Of balmy zephyrs, and of flowery plains, 

My song, more happy, speaks a golden name, 
Feels higher motives and a nobler flame 

For thee,O,R , the muse attunes her strings, 
And mounts sublime above inferior things. 

I sing not now of green embowering woods— 

I sing not now the daughters of the floods— 

I sing not of the storms o’er ocean driven, 


And how they howled along the waste of heaven: 


ButI to R would paint the British shore, 
And vast Atlantic, not untried before. 

Thy life impaired commands thee to arise, 
Leave these bleak regions and inclement skies, 
Where chilling winds return the Winter past, 
And nature shudders at the furious blast. 


(The fervent wish of the gentle Phillis was not granted. 
Bristol, England, soon after his arrival, about the year 1778. Mr. Ricketson has helped us to 
determine the date of the poem. The above poem was located in Daniel Ricketson’s “History of 
New Bedford,” New Bedford, 1858, 8vo, 412 pages, at page 253). 


A pen drawing from a rare print of Phillis 
Wheatley. 
By W. E. Braxton 


O, then, stupendous, earth-enclosing main, 
Exert thy wonders to the world again! 

If e’er thy power prolonged the fleeting breath, 
Turned back the shafts, and mocked the gates of deat 
If eer thine air dispensed a healing power, 
Or snatched the victim from the fatal hour,— 
Hs equal care demands thy equal care, 

And equal wonders may this patient share 
But unavailing—frantic—is the dream 

To hope thine aid without the aid of Him 
Who gave thee birth, and taught thee where to flow, 
And in thy waves his various blessings show. 


May R return to view his native shore 
Replete with vigor not his own before: 

Then shall we see with pleasure and surprise, 
And own thy work, great Ruler of the skies! 


The subject of her invocation died in 


IGNATIUS SANCHO 


A mezzo-tint from a painting by Gainsborough 


FRANCIS BARBER 


From a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds 


A drawing by Charles Cullen 


~The Runaway Slave at Piligrim’s Point 


By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING 


Ne 


stand on the mark, beside the shore, 
Of the first white pilgrim’s bended knee; 
j | Where exile changed to ancestor, 
Priksces And God was thanked for liberty. 
’ I have run through the night—my skin ts as dark— 
I bend my knee down on this mark— 
I look on the sky and the sea. 


Le 


O, pilgrim-souls, I speak to you: 
I see you come out proud and slow 
From the land of the spirits, pale as dew, 
And round me and round me ye go. 
O, pilgrims, I have gasped and run 
All night long from the whips of one 
Who in your names works sin and woe! 


ISDE. 


And thus I thought that I would come 
And kneel here where ye knelt before, 
And feel your souls around me hum 
In undertone to the ocean’s-roar,; 
And lift my black face, my black hand, 
Here in your names, to curse this land 
Ye blessed in Freedom’s heretofore. 


ae 


I am black, I am black, 
And yet God made me, they say: 

But if He did so—smiling back 
He must have cast his work away 

Under the feet of His white creatures 
With a look of scorn, that the dusky feature 

Might be trodden again to clay. 


VY 


And yet He has made dark things 
To be glad and merry as light; 
There’s a little dark bird sits and sings; 
Dhere’s a dark stream ripples out of sight; 
And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass, 
And the sweetest stars are made to pass 
Over the face of the darkest night. 


81 


82 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 


VI. 


But we who are dark, we are dark! 
O God, we have no stars! 
About our souls, in care and cark, 
Our blackness shuts like prison-bars! 
And crouch our souls so far behind, 
That never a comfort can they find, 
By reaching through their prison bars. 


Vale 


Howbeit God’s sunshine and H1s frost 
They make us hot, they make us cold, 
As if we were not black and lost, 
And the beasts and birds in wood and wold, 
Do fear us and take us for very men,;— 
Could the whipporwill or the cat of the glen 
Look into my eyes and be bold? 


VITIT. 


I am black, I am black, 
And once I laughed in girlish glee; 
For one of my color stood in the track 
Where the drivers’ drove, and looked at me; 
And tender and full was the look he gave! 
A Slave looked so at another Slave,— 
I look at the sky and the sea. Z 


IX. 


And from that hour our spirits grew 
As free as 1f unsold, unbought, 
We were strong enough, since we were two, 
To conquer the world, we thought. 
The drivers drove us day by day: 
We did not mind; we went one way, 
And no better a liberty sought. 


X. 


In the open ground between the canes, 
He said “I love you” as he passed 
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains, 

I heard how he vowed 1t fast, 
While other trembled, he sat in the hut 
And carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut 
Through the roar of the hurricanes. 


XI. 


I sang his name instead of a song; 

Over and over I sang his name. 
Backward and forward I sung it along, 

With my sweetest notes, it was still the same! 
But I sang it low, that the slave-girls near 

Might never guess, from what they could hear, 
That all the song was a name. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Le 


I look on the sky and the seat 
We were two to love, and two to pray,— 
Yes, two, O God, who cried on Thee, 
Though nothing didst thou say, 
Coldly thou sat’st behind the sun, 
And now I cry, who am but one, — 
Thou wilt not speak to-day! 


ATI. 


We were black, we were black, 
We had no claim to love and bliss— 
What marvel, ours was cast to wrack? 
They wrung my cold hands out of his— 
They dragged him—why, I crawled to touch 
His blood’s mark in the dust—not much, 
Ye pilgrim—souls,—though plain as THIS! 


ATV 


Wrong, followed by a greater wrong! 
Grief seemed too good for such as I; 

So the white men brought the shame ere long 
To stifle the sob in my throat thereby. 

They would not leave me for my dull 

W et eyes!—tt was too merciful 

To let me weep pure tears, and die. 


XV. 
I am black, I am black! 


I wore a child upon my breast,— 
An amulet that hung too slack, 
And, in my unrest, could not rest! 
Thus we went moaning, child and mother, 
One to another, one to another. 


Until all ended for the best. 


XVI. 


For hark! I will tell you low—low— 
I am black, you see, 

And the babe, that lay on my bosom so, 
Was far too white—too white for me, 

As white as the ladies who scorned to pray 
Beside me at the church but yesterday, 


Though my tears had washed a place for my knee. 


83 


84 


EB ONYLCANID -EOPAZ 


XVII. 


And my own child—I could not bear 
To look in his face, it was so white; 
So I covered him up with a kerchtef rare, 
I covered his face in, close and tight! 
And he moaned and struggled as well as might be, 
For the white child wanted his liberty — 
Ha, ha! he wanted his master’s right. 


XVIII 


He moaned and beat with his head and feet— 
His little feet that never grew! 
He struck them out as it was*meet 
Against my heart to break tt through. 
I might have sung like a mother mild, 
But I dared not sing to the white faced child 
The only song I knew. 


AIX. 


And yet I pulled the kerchtef close, 
He could not see the sun, I swear, 
More then, alive, than now he does 
From between the roots of the mangles-where? 
I know where!/—close! a child and mother 
Do wrong to look at one another 
When one 1s black and one 1s far. 


XX. 


Even in that single glance I had 
Of my child’s face,—I tell you all— 
I saw a look that made me mad,— 
The master’s look, that used to fall 
On my soul like his lash—or worse,— 
Therefore, to save it from my curse, 
I twisted it round in my shawl. 


AX, 


And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,— 
He shivered from head to foot— 

Till after a time, he lay, instead, 
Too suddenly still and -mute; 

And I felt, beside, a creeping cold,— 
I dared to lift up gust a fold, 

As in lifting a leaf of the mango frutt. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 
AXIT, 


But my fruit! ha, ha!—there had been 
(I laugh to think on ’t at this hour/) 
Your fine white angels;—who have been 
God secret nearest to His power,— 
And gathered my fruit to make them wine, 
And sucked the soul of that child of mine, 
As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower. 


AXITI, 


Ha, hat! for the trick of the angels white! 
They freed the white child’s spirit so; 

I said not a word but day and night 
I carried the body to and fro; 

And it lay on my heart like a stone—as chill; 
The sun may shine out as much as he will,— 

I am cold, though it happened a month ago. 


AXIV. 


From the white man’s house and the black man’s hut, 
I carried the little body on, 

The forest’s arms did around us shut, 
And silence through the trees did run/ 

They asked no questions as I went,— 
They stood too high for astonishment — 

They could see God rise on his throne. 


AXP, 


My little body kerchief fast, 
I bore it on through the forest—on— 
And when I felt tt was tired at last, 
I scooped a hole beneath the moon. 
Through the forest-tops the angels far, 
With a white fine finger in every star 
Did point and mock at what was done. 


AXVI, 


Yet when it all was done aright, 
Earth twixt me and my baby strewed,— 

All changed to black earth,—nothing white— 
A dark child in the dark.—ensued 

Some comfort, and my heart grew young, 
I sat down smiling there, and sung 


The song I told you of for good. 


85 


86 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 
AXVII, 


And there we two were reconciled, 
The white child and black mother, thus, 
For, as I sang it,—soft and wild, 
The same song, more melodious, 
Rose from the grave whereon I sat! 
It was the dead child singing that, 
To join the souls of both of us. 


AXVITI. 


I look on the sea and the sky! 

Where the Pilgrims’ ships first anchored lay, 
The great sun rideth gloriously! 

But the Pilgrims’ ghosts have slid away 
Through the first faint streaks of the morn! 

My face is black, but it glares with a scorn 
Which they dare not meet by day. 


XXIX. 


Ah! in their stead their hunter—sons! 

Ah, ah! they are on me/ they form ina ring! 
Keep off—I brave you all at once,— 

I throw off your eyes like a notsome thing! 
You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think; 

Did you ever stand still in your triumph, and shrink 
From the stroke of her wounded wing? 


AXX, 
(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift/) 


I wish you, who stand there, seven abreast, 
Each for his own wife’s grace and gift, 
Little corpse as safely at rest, 
Hid in the mangles! Yes, but she 
May keep like babies on her knee, 
And sing the song she Itketh best. 


XXX, 


I am not mad,—I am black! 
I see you staring in my face,— 
I know you staring, shrinking back,— 
Ye are born of the Washington race! 
And this land is the Free America— 
And this mark on my wrist-——(I prove what I say) 
Ropes tied me up here to the flogging place. 


AOE 
You think I shrieked there? not a sound! 


I hung as a gourd hangs 1n the sun; 
I only cursed them all around 

As softly as I might have done 
My own child after. From these sands 

Up to the mountains, lift your hands 
O slaves, and end what I begun. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 87 
LOOGIE 


Whips, curses! these must answer those! 
For in this Unton, ye have set 
Two kinds of men in adverse rows, 
Each loathing each! and all forget 
The seven wounds in Christ's body fair; 
While he sees gaping everywhere 
Our countless wounds that pay no debt. 


AXXIV. 


Our wounds are different—your white men 
Are, after all not gods indeed, 
Nor able to make Christs again 
Do good with bleeding. We who bleed — 
(Stand off!)—we help not in our loss— 
We are too heavy for our cross, 


And fall and crush you and your seed. 


AXXV. 


I fall,—I swoon,—I look at the sky/ 
The clouds are breaking on my brain: 
I am floated along, as tf I should die 
Of Liberty’s exquisite pain! 
In the name of the white child waiting for me 
In the deep black death where our kisses agree.— 
White men, I leave you all curse—free, 
In my broken heart disdain! 


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MAUMEE TVA PREVA YETI TTA OF EIT 


If you know well the beginning 
The end will not trouble you much. 


—An African Proverb. 


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we ime ested oT tes alan 


Oe ENONTT IE SE EN 
Te OPE 


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BE PR EIT De RR Wet i : 
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“ AN AFRICAN TYPE, by Baron von Ruckteschell 


THE NATURAL HISTORY OF 
RACE PREJUDICE 


By ELLSwortH Faris 


reading the title Natural History of 
Race Prejudice, the reader is asked to 
regard the occurrence of race prejudice 
as a natural phenomenon, just as truly 
as drought, an earthquake, or an epi- 
demic of small pox. Race prejudice is defended by 
some as desirable, it is deprecated by others as an 
evil. Men have their opinions and attitudes on this 
subject but it is not the purpose here to discuss this 
phase of it. However good or bad it may be, it is 
assumed that it is possible, and believed to be ad- 


vantageous to view the matter with detachment and. 


to look to the conditions under which it appears, 
the causé or’ causes of its origin, the forms it as- 
sumes, the conditions under which it has increased 
or diminished in intensity, and whether it disap- 
pears, and why. This paper is too brief to do more 
than suggest a treatment of the topic. 

The advantage of this mode of procedure is ap- 
parent. The history of science seems to show that 
this method is more fruitful. Knowledge is power; 
science gives control; to see is to foresee. We can 
effectively change and control only those events that 
we can formulate. 

Race prejudice is a special form of class preju- 
dice and does not differ in attitude. The only 
difference is in the object. There may be in a 
community a prejudice against preachers or soldiers 
or Republicans. The prejudice against radicals is 
like the prejudice against Negroes except for its 
mutability. Religion ‘or politics are voluntary and 
can be changed, while. race is relatively independent 
of the will. 

But class and race prejudice in turn are special 
forms of a larger category of human experience, 
namely, prejudice in general. Men speak of preju- 
dice against the Anti-saloon League, too short 
skirts, the yellow press, cigarettes and small towns. 

Prejudice is not easy to define for it is bound 
up with emotion and contains usually an element 
of reproach. The dictionary may tell that preju- 
dice is “an opinion or leaning adverse to anything 
without just grounds or sufficient knowledge,” but 
is is not easy to agree as to what grounds are just 
or what knowledge is sufficient. And race preju- 
dice, like all prejudices after they endure over a 
period of time, tends to be supported by arguments. 
The grounds may not be rational to a critic, but 
they may seem rational to those who hold the views. 
It often happens that prejudice is denied by one in 
whom others confidently assert it. 


89 


Nevertheless, for practical purposes,. this diffi- 
culty is not great. Race prejudice is recognized as a 
feeling of antipathy or a tendency to withdraw or 
limit one’s contacts toward the members of a certain 
racial group. ' 

It is important to observe that race prejudice is 
typically a collective thing. It characterizes a group. 
It is not private, it is public. Of course, the mani- 
festations are individual, but the point is that race 
prejudice is of no importance unless the same or sim-. 
ilar attitudes and feelings occur in many people at 
once. Race: prejudice then belongs in the field. of 
public opinion or public sentiment.: te 

‘It is of importance also to: point Gut-that- race. 
prejudice is attached ‘to: the -soil.--It characterizes’ 
a given area and a study of race prejudice can: 
never be adequately made without a map. - The 
significance of this fact arises) when we discover 
that individuals migrating into an area. where a 
certain prejudice exists tend to acquire it although 
it was absent from their original region. One 
cannot discuss the subject concretely without a ref- 
erence to certain areas. “The student thinks of the 
prejudice against Jews in Roumania, against Ne- 
groes in Mississippi, against Japanese in California. 

In. attempting to understand the nature of race 
prejudice it is important to observe its wide extent. 
The Japanese have been. referred to as the object 
of prejudice in California, but-in Japan. the Eta 
people who number well over a million .are the 
objects of an extreme form of prejudice. An Eta 
is not supposed to enter the temple for. worship.. 
In one recorded instance an Eta insisted on being 
allowed to worship and said to those who deterred 
him, “I also am a human being. Why cannot I 
worship the gods?” ‘The crowd set upon him and 
he was killed. When his friends complained to 
the magistrate they were told, “One human being 
is equal to seven Etas. A man cannot be punished 
for killing one-seventh of a man. Come back to 
me when six more of you have been killed.” There 
is prejudice against the Eurasians in China, against 
the. natives, the mulattos and Hindus in South 
Africa, against the Mexicans in Southern Texas, 
against the Jews in most parts of the world, and 
so on around the map. 

If now we inquire into the conditions under 
which the phenomenon appears, we are able to say 
that there is a quantitative requirement or precon- 
dition which seems necessary. If only a few mem- 
bers of an alien group appear they do not usually 


90 EBONY AND TOPAZ pala 


call out any such attitudes. The first Japanese were 
received with every evidence of welcome. Thirty 
years ago a Japanese gentleman married an Amer- 
ican girl in Chicago. The wedding was the oc- 
casion of widespread interest and one newspaper 
devoted a whole page of its Sunday edition to pic- 
tures and description of the event. “The prejudice 
against them did not arise until they had appeared 
in far larger numbers. The same remark applies 
to the Armenian in the West. In Natal in South 
Africa the British residents invited and imported 
men from India to work. This was in 1865. They 
were welcomed and it is agreed that their labor 
saved the colony from financial disaster. Thirty 
years later there were more than a hundred thou- 
sand, and the prejudice against them was intense. 
There were Jim Crow laws for the railroads, but 
they were forbidden on the street cars altogether. 
Moreover, they were forbidden to walk on the 
sidewalk and restrictions and social ostracism took 
an extreme form. 


These and similar facts have led to the state- 
ment very widely accepted that race prejudice is 
caused by economic competition. Undoubtedly eco- 
nomic competition does occasion such sentmients, 
but it appears not to be everywhere the case. There 
is at present a widespread and very strong feeling 
in China against two racial groups, the Japanese 
and the English. Not only has there been an 
economic boycott, merchants refusing to handle the 
goods from these nations, but the coolies have re- 
fused to work for any Englishman or Japanese, and 
prominent Chinese have dropped their membership 
in clubs because of their feelings. “This movement 
is so recent that we can state the facts with confi- 
dence. The Japanese hostility was occasioned by 
the fear of aggression, brought to a dramatic cli- 
max by the twenty-one demands, while the hostility 
to the English grew out of their refusal in the 
Washington Conference to allow the Chinese to 
regulate their own tariff provisions. In both cases 
the feeling was stirred up by the Chinese students 
who were hardly in any noticeable condition of 
competition, at least economic. ‘The students peti- 
tioned the government, interviewed the merchants, 
and harangued the coolies. The effect was quite 
typical but the cause is not apparently the one 
ordinarily assigned. 


Race prejudice has often been asserted by popu- 
lar writers to be instinctive or hereditary. While 
this is apparently a complete misstatement it is a 
very excusable one. The error arises from the nor- 
mal tendency of unsophisticated people to confuse 
the customary with the natural. When children 
grow up in a community they take on the customs 
and attitudes prevailing, some of which are very 
old while others are quite recent in origin. But 
the children can make no distinction between the 
new and the old and when the attitudes have be- 
come second nature they are often thought of as 
innate or natural. It is said to be “in the blood.” 


That this is not true can be shown by a comparison 
in space and time of the same racial stock in respect 
of this prejudice. The English in South Africa 
manifest it to an intense degree, as they do also 
in China against the natives, in sections of Canada 
against the French, and in parts of India and par- 
ticularly in Australia. Yet these same English in 
New Zealand do not have much prejudice against 
the Maoris who-differ from them far more in com- 
plexion and civilization than do the Canadian 
French. Moreover, the prejudice against Jews in 
England has greatly mitigated. No doubt some 
exists but it is undeniable that there has been an 
important modification in the direction of assimi- 
lation. 


Nor is it possible to assert that wherever two 
races meet each other there will be prejudice. A 
list of the areas where it does occur would be too 
long but we may repeat that in South Africa the 
English have prejudice against at least four groups, 
and in Turkey the phenomenon was intense. The 
Poles and Lithuanians furnish an extreme example, 
the prejudice between the French and English in 
Canada has been mentioned, the Negroes in the 
United States are the objects of it, while in Haiti 
it is possible to describe a prejudice of the blacks 
against the whites. The French have their anti- 
semitism which is perhaps most severe in Roumania. 
The list if complete would be very long but I men- 
tion that in the last few months in Chicago there 
has developed a racial prejudice between the Polish 
and the Mexicans, due in part to economic compe- 
tition and to certain tragic events that accentuated 
the feeling. 


On the other hand race prejudice is relatively 
absent from Switzerland, the English have lost 
much of their feeling against the Jews, three races 
live without race prejudice in Brazil, there is no 
prejudice against the Indians in Mexico as Indians, 
two races live without prejudice in New Zealand, 
several racial groups live together without prejudice - 
in Hawaii, and the phenomenon has never occurred 
in Greenland in the southern portions of which 
the common racial type is a mixture of Nordic and 
Eskimo blood. 


If now we inquire more specifically into the con- 
ditions of race prejudice it appears that in all cases 
there is some form of conflict. It may be, and often 
is, a struggle for money, work, bread, but in many 
cases it is a struggle for position, status, social prom- 
inence, and when it occurs there seems to be a neces- 
sity for a definite group consciousness; an esprit de 
corp arises in one group in contrast to their con- 
ception of the other. It is interesting to notice that 
prejudice is thus double-edged. The prejudice 
against one group arises with the prejudice for an- 
other; prejudice is the other end of one type of 
loyalty. It is this fact that has made it so easy 
for those who defend race prejudice and exclusion 
to present plausible arguments and rationalizations. 

The extreme form of race prejudice, or perhaps 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 91 


better, one extreme limit of its development re- 
sults in a condition of stability in which it is some- 
times difficult to recognize the main features of 
prejudice. I refer to the accommodation or ac- 
‘ceptance of the situation on both sides, in which 
case the inferior group ceases to struggle against 
the controlling one. This characterizes much of 
the relation between the southern masters and their 
slaves before the war. It is seen in its extreme 
form in the caste system of India. Now it would 
be a profitless argument to insist that caste is not 
prejudice, but for the fact that the acceptance does 
alter the whole psychology. At the present time 
when caste in India is beginning to disintegrate 
prejudice is more easy to find. 


Now the caste lines are, or were, extremely 
rigid. “The members of a caste had the same oc- 
cupation and what we call the social ladder which 
is used by the social climbers did not and could not 
exist. A poor man’s children could never expect 
to rise in the world by getting into another group. 
Moreover, a person could not marry save in his 
own caste. He could not eat with another not in 
his own caste, his meals must not be cooked except 
by one of his own caste, neither could the cooked 
food be handled by anyone of another group. The 
interesting thing to the psychologist here is in the 
form which the defense of such a situation normally 
takes. Anyone familiar with the literature of edu- 
cated Indians on this subject will recall how often 
the condition has been defended as being desirable 
because of the benefits to civilization and humanity 
which flow from loyalty to one’s own group. Ex- 
actly the same arguments occur in the writings of 
Americans in general and southerners in particu- 
lar on the question of race mixture in the South. 
The current activity of the Ku Klux Klan abounds 
in highly idealistic phrases of loyalty and devotion 
to the precious heritage of the superior group. Race 
prejudice takes the form of altruistic devotion. The 
hostility masquerades as love and the wolf of hatred 
wears the sheep’s clothing of affection and solicitude 
for the beloved group. 


This leads us to the question of the motives 
which govern race prejudice, and the social psy- 
chologists have discovered an important principle 
which applies. It is now known that in the case of 
an ancient custom the motives are certain to vary. 
This is partly due to the fact that the custom is 
more difficult to change than its motive. Children 
carry on the custom without any motive, and if the 
old motive must be given up a new one spontan- 
eously arises and men try to phrase their motives 
so that others will not condemn them. It is hard 
to imagine the published defense of race exclusion 
assigned to the motive of hatred or of fear. It is 
not conscious hypocracy; it is the normal thing in 
human nature to attempt to make our actions ap- 
pear as defensible as possible. 


There are thus survivals in the plays and games 
of children, in the customs of weddings, funerals, 


and baptisms which go back to rather humble 
origins but which continue from approved modern 
motives. Likewise with race prejudice. Sometimes 
the despised race is represented as inferior but a 
recent writer in California defended the severity 
toward the Japanese and concluded with the state- 
ment, “If the Japanese are superior people so much 
the worse.” One can read rationalizations which 
take the form of a pseudo-scientific assertion, that 
while both races may be good, the mixture is bad. 
There is nothing in this except the ingenuity of an 
anthor who rather pathetically grasps at a poor 
reason when he has had to abandon the others. 


Race prejudice thus can be shown to be founded 
not on reason but on sentiments lying deeper and 
to be relatively impervious to rational arguments. 
Defenders of the Negro can martial many interest- 
ing and important facts. In 1870 the Negro in the 
United States owned 12,000 homes, 20,000 farms, 
and property to the value of $20,000,000. At the 
present time they own 700,000 homes, 1,000,000 
farms, and are worth $1,800,000,000. They own 
22,000,000 acres of land, which is equal to the 
area of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, and Connecticut. These facts are 
very interesting and very important, but when they 
are quoted to a person who is defending race preju- 
dice in America their effect is sometimes absolutely 
nothing. 

In the concrete social phenomena, particularly 

those of a collective nature, we may distinguish 
two parts or elements. One of these is relatively 
changeable and arises from the need men feel to 
be logical and the desire they have to appear rea- 
sonable to their fellows. “The other element is rela- 
tively invariable and is based upon, or the expres- 
sion of the interests and the emotions which lie 
deep in the personality. ‘These are the social atti- 
tudes, and race prejudice is one of them. It is not 
the result of calm reasoning but arises from an emo- 
tional condition in a specific social setting. This atti- 
tude is defended by arguments but is not necessarily 
altered by counter arguments. 
If the reasons assigned for the prejudice are shown 
to be bad the usual effect will be the abandonment 
of the reasons and the assertion of new reasons for 
the same old attitude. Race prejudice, as will be 
later shown, can be lost and does on occasion disap- 
pear, but it is perhaps futile to expect the attitude 
to yield to mere arguments, though of course there 
is no reason why men who who wish to argue may 
not do so. 


We may attempt to summarize the views here 
expressed under the following heads: 


1. Race prejudice is very widespread. It is al- 
most universal. Indeed, sociologists would agree 
that it might appear anywhere on the planet and 
has actually been manifested by every racial group. 
Those who are the victims of exclusion in some 
areas are themselves exclusive in other places. The 
Chinese may be discriminated against in America, 


92 EBONY AND FOPAZ 


but the Chinese in China have exhibited the same 
antagonism against other racial groups. “The Japa- 
nese are discriminated against but at times they 
themselves are discriminating, and so with the 
peoples of India, whether Hindus or Mohamme- 
dans, not to mention the various color lines which 
exist among American Negroes. We shall there- 
fore be most accurate in our formulation of race 
prejudice if we regard it as a natural phenomenon 
and normal in the sense in which Durkheim speaks 
of crime as normal or poverty or suicide, by which 
he means that under given conditions the statistical 
facts force the prediction that the phenomenon will 
continue to occur. 

2. Race prejudice is not one culture pattern 
but many. It takes many forms and exhibits many 
degrees. There is always involved a collective atti- 
tude of exclusiveness, the object of prejudice being 
kept at a greater distance than the members of one’s 
own race. But this social distance varies and a 
rough measure or scale could be made, and has in- 
deep been attempted. “The members of the out- 
group: are in some places completely excluded from 
every form of contact as for example in India where 
the very shadow of an untouchable is a contamina- 
tion, or again, the out-group may mingle freely in 
public thoroughfares but may not sit as neighbors 
in a public assembly. Sometimes the line is drawn 
at eating together where it forbids or permits pub- 
lic assemblies of a religious nature, and so on 
through separate scales to complete “‘social equal- 
ity” and the approved courtship and marriage be- 
tween the young people of the two groups. ‘The 
exact conditions under which the line is drawn in 
each case might be historically accounted for, but 
there is little or no logic in it and it can easily be 
shown to be absurd. As before remarked, however, 
one may admit the absurdity and retain the attitude. 


3. When race prejudice arises it appears to fol- 
low a pattern which has been set locally in the 
mores if such pattern be present. hus the extreme 
form of exclusiveness toward the Indians in South 
Africa can only be explained by the previously ac- 
quired attitudes toward the native Negroes. Feel- 
ing against the Indians was no higher in Natal than 
against the Japanese in California, but the form 
ot exclusion is different, and this pattern was fol- 
lowed in each case. A recent court decision in 
Mississippi excludes Chinese from the public 
schools. This is understandable if we recall the 
pattern existing with reference to the Negroes in 
the south. It may be called a certain consistency 
in exclusiveness and follows a certain law of habit. 


If prejudice arises where there is no pattern or 
tradition it may take original forms. Thus the 
children of the slave women in the south who were 
not acknowledged by their fathers and who lived 
with their mothers brought about the classification 
of mulattoes and full-bloods as members of the same 
excluded group. In the Portuguese colonies where 
such children were recognized and publicly ac- 


knowledged: by the father, the mulatto came to be: 
classed with the white group. In Cape Colony the 
mulatto received certain concessions, as for example, 
the right to vote which tended to make them into a 
third caste quite different from the situation in the 
two other cases. 

4. Race prejudice having arisen it may be inten- 
sified or mitigated by social experiences. It is ag- 
gravated by any conflict between the groups. If 
conflict ceases entirely, a condition of equilibrium 
known as accommodation ensues and the feeling 
is reduced to a minimum. If, however, the conflict 
or hositility arises in a form where the in-group and 
out-group unite against a common antagonist or 
enemy the result is always to mitigate the prejudice 
and to act in the direction of its removal. 

During the World War there was a period when 
the Negro soldiers and the Negro man-power were 
regarded as valuable assets to the nation. Men 
who had never done so before used the words ““we” 
and ‘us’ to include the Negro and white groups 
taken together. Had the contlict lasted longer, and 
had it at the same. time threatened to go against 
us, this common feeling would have been more en- 
during. What happened is a matter of common 
knowledge. ‘Lhe unexpected armistice released the 
tension and in some places a very strong reaction 
took place. Nevertheless, the period is part of the 
experience of the nation, and the ultimate result in 
social evolution will be affected by what happened 
in 1917-18. 


5. Race prejudice is increased both in intensity 
and in duration when to the difference in heredity 
is added the factor of religious or other social bar- 
rier. Anti-semitism seems almost perennial and 
part of the explanation may be looked for in the 
multiplicity of barriers to treedom of social inter- 
course. Each new wave of immigration supplies a 
group who differ even in dress. ‘Lhe dietary differ- 
ences are by no means negligible though these tend 
to disappear, but the religious separation continues: 
to accentuate and emphasize the objects of exclusion 
when the original motives and occasions have dis- 
appeared. Still it is possible to over-state this point. 
The definition of the we-group and out-group de- 
pends upon the arousal of group consciousness and 
this may take place in disregard of any single type 
of separation, whether religious, racial, or any 
other. The massacre at Amritsar united for the 
time being men in south India with the inhabitants 
of the Punjab in an intense feeling of brotherhood in 
spite of many differences and in spite of ancient 
historical antipathy. It is a common practice of 
Hindu students in American universities to wear 
a turban or some distinctive mark so that they 
will not be classed as Negroes. Yet it sometimes 
happens that a series of unpleasant experiences will 
entirely change this attitude. and the Hindu will 
class himself as a colored man, aligning himself with 
the American Negro. ‘This phenomenon follows 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 93 


the normal law of group consciousness which per- 
haps needs no further illustration. 

6. Race prejudice cannot only be mitigated, it 
can disappear. In many cases it has entirely disap- 
peared and in other situations it is obviously de- 
creasing. “The Norman Conquest of England was 
followed by a period of racial hostility and preju- 
dice, but at the present time there is hardly a vestige 
of the feeling remaining. There was an unmistak- 
able race prejudice against German immigrants in 
this country and the successive groups of Germans, 
Irish and French felt the effects of this same phe- 
nomenon. At the present time the race prejudice 
against these three groups is hardly more than ves- 
tigial. The hostility which the Germans and Irish 
encountered is now turned against Italians, Poles, 
Mexicans and others, but there seems no discover- 
able difference between the treatment of these last 
and the way in which the former groups were origi- 
nally received. 


7. If we inquire more particularly into the 
stages of integration it seems that there can be dis- 
tinguished certain generalized aspects. There is 
first of all the gradual taking over of the customs 
of the dominant group. ‘This is observed first in 
the costumes, particularly the costumes of the men 
who go freely among the natives, and of the child- 
ren and young people who are sensitive to the criti- 
cism of those among whom they move. Costume is 
more conservative in the case of the older women 
chiefly because of the domestic isolation. Next fol- 
lows the matter of language. The first generation 
learns to talk English if possible, but they are some- 
times too busy. The second generation has usually 
two languages, but the third generation often dis- 
cards the heritage of their fathers for the custom 
of the country. 

The sociologist sees in the public schools of 
America the real melting pot. The immigrant 
children are confronted with the new culture in a 
way that forces them to adopt it. The methods are 
sometimes brutal, the ridicule of the natives being 
the most cruel weapon, and because the children 
are young and defenseless they capitulate rather 
promptly and are absorbed into the cultural life of 
their schoolmates. We can generalize all these 
processes under the head of common experiences 
which, as before mentioned, are the sources of group 
consciousness and group loyalty. The bi-racial com- 
mittees in the south have often been little more 
than informal conferences by leading members of 
both races to talk over a situation to see what can 
be done. These committees help to create a temp- 
orary we-group and add ever so little to the stock 
of traditions which forms the stream of social 
evolution. 

An important means or method for the mitiga- 
tion of race prejudice lies in the realm of art. To 
join with an Irish girl in order to help her persuade 
her father to let her marry a Jewish boy is not 
given to many Americans. But in the theatre we 


may do this for two interesting and amusing hours. 
Art is an experience, a sort of vicarious experience, 
and yet however vicarious it may be, it is an emo- 
tional experience and always modifies our emotional 
attitudes. The exhibition of primitive African 
sculpture may have little effect, but it may have 
some. ‘The reading of a powerful novel in which 
the human qualities of another race are made ap- 
pealing acts like a powerful social cement to bind 
together the hitherto unconnected fragments of a 
social body. 


Of course art can work both ways. The Negroes 
objected to the “Birth of the Nation” and the 
“Clansman.” No one who strongly desired the 
disappearance of race prejudice between whites and 
Negroes would care to see this drama continue in 
its popularity. Indeed, it may be thought of as a 
direct reaction to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” 

8. Race prejudice being at the same time a 
collective and an emotional condition it is modified 
slowly. It is not an individual phenomenon, though 
every serious individual modification may be theo- 
retically assumed to have some effect on the whole. 
The important point is that the subjective emo- 
tions are only half, the other half being the external 
conditions and organized regulations. It is only 
partly true to say that religious emotions or prin- 
ciples can remove it. This would be to neglect the 
necessity of a change in the external conditions. 
There is, therefore, a double problem; the one psy- 
chological, the other institutional. Any attempt to 
study it or to change it without recognizing this is 
apparently doomed to disappointment. This is the 
sense in which race prejudice is appropriately called 
a natural phenomenon. It changes slowly but it 
does change. A too sudden modification, either of 
attitude or institution, is not only impermanent in 
character but tends to be followed by a reaction 
which temporarily leaves the last state worse than 
the first. . 

9. But to call race prejudice a natural phenom- 
enon is not to assume that it should be endured o~ 
accepted. If we may call race prejudice natural 
we must also admit suicide, murder, and autome- 
bile accidents into this same class. These disturb 
us and we try to mitigate them, but perhaps we 
shall never wholly succeed. Nevertheless, the un- 
welcome effects are undeniable and should be clearly 
kept in mind. 

Race prejudice is narrowing. It may intensify 
lovalty to one’s own group; it certainly produces 
blindness when members of the out-group are con- 
sidered. We resard as human those whom we can 
svmpathize with, whose motives we understand, 
and whose feelings we recognize to be like our own. 
The barriers men erect in prejudice make it some- 
times difficult, sometimes impossible to regard the 
member of an excluded group as being wholly hu- 
man. If we fight the Germans we tend to regard 
them as Huns, as man-like beasts, as cruel savages. 
If we exclude Negroes we call them inferior or 


94 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


patronize them as being emotionally gifted but 
intellectually deficient. Reactionaries of today 
speak of the south Europeans as coming from un- 
assimilable stocks. Sometimes a man who feels 
this way writes a book to prove it and calls it 
science. But let us not be deceived in such a culture 
trait. There is always an emotional element which 
is difficult to alter and even hard to make explicit. 
It is a sentiment of race prejudice and it narrows 
the individual life and always weakens the society 
where it exists. 

The effect of race prejudice on individuals who 
hold it is to limit their power of discrimination. It 
blinds a man to differences where these would 
otherwise be easily seen. Persons are treated ac- 


cording to a stereotype and not as separate and 
distinct individualities. This is a sort of mental 
laziness due to the emotional attitude which, be- 
ing directed toward a class, is manifested toward 
the varying members of the class as if it did not 
vary. 

The object of this paper has been to show that 
the desire to change a prejudice is more likely to 
succeed if we first understand fully the nature of 
prejudice. ‘Those who are interested in removing 
a social attitude are more apt to succeed if they 
first are successful in understanding why people 
have the attitude who do have it. 

ELLswortH Faris, 
University of Chicago. 


SYBIL WARNS HER SISTER 
By ANNE SPENCER 


It 1s dangerous for a woman to defy the gods; 
To taunt them with the tongue’s thin tip, 

Or strut in the weakness of mere humanity, 
Or draw a line daring them to cross; 

The gods who own the searing lightning, 

The drowning waters, the tormenting fears, 


The anger of red sins .. . 


Oh, but worse still if you mince along timidly— 
Dodge this way or that, or kneel, or pray, 

Or be kind, or sweat agony drops, 

Or lay your quick body over your feeble young, 
If you have beauty or plainness, tf celibate, 

Or vowed—the gods are Juggernaut, 

Passing over each of us... 


Or this you may do: 


Lock your heart, then, quietly, 
And, lest they peer within, 
Tight no lamp when dark comes down 


Raise no shade for sun, 


Breathless must your breath come thru, 
If you’d die and dare deny 
The gods their god-like fun! 


- ; - 


Original Paul Laurence Dunbar Manuscripts 


te 


SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE 
AMERICAN RACE PROBLEM 


By EUGENE KINCKLE JONES 


ECENTLY, I had the pleasure of visit- 
ing the cinema version of Harriet 
Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 
So well is the story portrayed that 
one finds himself living the life of the 

characters in the slave period..of American history. 

At the end, Eliza and the other members of the 
Harris family are reunited as the Union soldiers 
bring freedom to the slaves—-Sherman’s army pass- 

ing the plantation of Simon Legree, Eliza’s and 

Uncle Tom’s master, at the psychological moment. 

One sees Old Glory once more flashing triumphant- 


ly over the land, and suddenly with the “‘finis” the 


theatre lights flash on and I am transported over a 
period of sixty-two years to find myself once more 
in America in 1927, a Negro facing many whites— 
all of whom seem to be saying ‘““What a metamor- 
phosis. How can it be that these same men of sixty 
years ago now possess so many of those qualities 
which reflect civilization as we know it!” 

The period of the Negro’s life as free men in 
America since the Civil War has been the most 
progressive period of the Negro’s experience any- 
where in the world, and it. is doubtful that any 
group of human pemes anywhere has made as much 


advancement under similar circumstances as they: 


have made in so short a time. “The last fifteen years 
of this period have been the most favorable of this 
sixty-odd year period. ‘The social forces at work 
during the time just before the entrance of America 
into the World War and the demand on the Negro 
during and since the war are recorded as stimuli to 
this remarkable advancement. But one should not 
overlook the fact that. the Negro must long have 


been on the alert for: the appearance of his, chance 


and was psychologically prepared to throw himself 
vigorously into situations from which he would 
emerge with profit. 

In the very beginning of the race’s life as free 
men in the South, it was a group of ‘saintly, self- 
effacing white missionaries, men and :women, of the 
North who went to. the South, established schools 
for the education of the Negro and breathed the 
spirit of hope into this benighted- group, that has 
since been leading Negroes out of the wilderness of 
ignorance and despair. 

Many persons today are under the impression that 
race relations are more strained in America now 
than at any time during the past fifty~years. But 
my opinion is that this is due to confusion in think- 
ing. The situation should be appraised rela- 
tively. It is true that the spirit of tolerance seems 


96 


to be strained in certain quarters although no one 
would question the statement that the attitude of 
white employers towards their Negro servants and 
other menial and unskilled employees is much bet- 
ter. The point of strained relations seems to be 
where Negroes. who have gained education and in- 
dustrial efficiency seek choice positions or better 
homes in neighborhoods where whites because of 
their economic status have not before had Negro 
neighbors. My impression is that these evidences of 
intolerance are the inevitable results of the so-called 
inferior group bringing pressure on their obstacles 
as they themselves. acquire higher living and intel- 
lectual standards and assume the rights and the atti- 
tude of developing men. And in the game of life, 
just as in athletic contests, the opposition is greatest 
nearest the goal line. To illustrate this point: 
Forty-five years ago, in Richmond, Virginia, the 
public schools maintained by the city for colored 
children had local white teachers. My father, a na- 
tive of Virginia, but a graduate of Colgate Uni- 
versity, Hamilton, New York, who was then teach- 
ing in one of the missionary schools in Richmond, be- 
gan to advocate the employment of Negro teachers 
in Negro public schools there. His argument was 
that if the Negroes were to be separately educated 
they should have their own teachers. And if the 
white teachers were to be associated in the schools 
with the colored children and brought into frequent 
contact in conferences with the pupils’ parents, he 
saw no reason why this system should not be ex- 
tended and Negro and white children be educated 
together i in the same schools. He was publicly at- 
tacked in the white press and by white clergy- 
men (!) as a:Negro advocating miscegenation and 
amalgamation of the races. “Today there are colored 
teachers in all the public schools there and it is not 
considered at all out of place for a Negro leader 
to advocate the use of colored men as principals of 
the colored schools. ‘Already we see many evidences 
of the acceptance of the Negro in his new status. 
Naturally, you would look for this evidence at the 
top. Negro intellectuals. find very little discrimi- 
nation in the intellectual:world. Artists, musicians, 
literary men of both races mingle freely in the dis- 
cussion of their major interests. And this is not 
only true in the North but it is increasingly becom- 
ing true in the South. Students in southern white 
and Negro colleges are having joint group discus- 
sions and there is talk of exchange professorships 
on special sociological problems between certain 
southern white and colored colleges. Within the 


EBONY ‘AND T:O.PAZ 97 


~ 


EUGENE KINCKLE JONES 


From a drawing by Francis Holbrook 


last six months in one of the largest southern cities, 
an intellectual white man entertained his friends of 
similar interests in honor of a popular Negro poet. 
Among the masses, there are evidences also of a 
growing understanding. Of course, it takes about 
twenty-five years for the theories expounded in the 
“universities to gain currency among ‘the people at 
large; but the confusion that has been created by the 
failure of the theories as to racial inferiority when 
‘decided by unbiased scientific measurements has led 
“the outstanding professors in Anthropology, Psy- 
chology and Sociology to admit ‘to their students that 
“at least.these beliefs have not.been substantiated and 
before many years lay America will admit at least 


as much as Lothrop Stoddard does, that any sepa- 
ration .of the races must be based not upon ideas of 
inferiority of racial groups but only on the theory 
-of difference, even though this difference has not 
been and will not be explained. - 

Slavery left attitudes in whites towards Negroes 
which the generations since have not entirely eradi- 
cated. But gradually Negroes are being recorded 


-as persons capable of becoming self-contained indi- 


viduals who do not have to depend upon white suf- 
_ferance and philanthropy for their salvation. This 
4s the most encouragirig phase of the whole rela- 
tionship and it should stimulate philanthropy to more 
determined endeavor in behalf of the Negro group 


98 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


as this is America’s ideal, that its citizenry shall be 
able to adjust themselves to their environment and 
make of themselves self-possessed, independent, re- 
sourceful, productive citizens. No matter what the 
disposition of the whites as a whole may be to hinder 
or to help, measurable social improvement in the 
Negro must be provided for in any permanent solu- 
tion of the so-called problem. 

Some years ago, it was common practice among 
social and medical scientists to point out the evi- 
dence of Negro inferiority in terms of higher death 
rates and lower physical resistance to diseases. Now 
with the Negro mortality figures standing about 
where the white mortality figures were in America 
twelve or fifteen years ago and gradually getting 
better, one never hears a reputable physician or stat- 
istician presenting such evidence. Similarly, crimi- 
nologists cited relative prison population figures to 
indicate the lower moral status of the Negro. When 
during the prohibition period we see the Negro 
prison population of North Carolina and South 
Carolina decreasing and the white prison population 
greatly increasing to the point where the proportions 
tend to be equal, critics of the Negro’s morals are 
silenced. 

Of course, the atrocity and the violence with 
which whites in high places have enacted crimes 
against person, property and the State have never 
been approached by Negroes of any standing whatso- 
ever in America, and I have personally witnessed 
many a white audience wilt in a discussion of the 
subject of Negro crime when a Negro lecturer has 
facetiously stated: ‘““When will we in America ever 
make good Americans out of these white people by 
stopping them from robbing our country’s oil lands, 
and padding the amounts of our public improve- 
ments, and doing away with their husbands and 
wives in order to be safe in clandestine meetings 
with the third angle of the triangle?” 

Personnel managers and large employers of labor 
no longer speak of Negroes’ lack of industrial ca- 
pacity, efficiency or skill; although they had never 
employed them. ‘The war time and post-war expe- 
rience with Negro labor under favorable circum- 
stances has exploded these myths about the Negro’s 
industrial ability. Now it is only a question, em- 
ployers say, as to whether their white employees 
will stand for the employment of Negro workers. 

While national legislation has provided the at- 
mosphere for the race’s development in a demo- 
cratic form of goverment, the means by which Ne- 
groes could acquire most of this unusual progress 
have been furnished by social, educational and re- 
ligious agencies—many of them State or munici- 
pally supported, but most of them privately main- 
tained. When all of the social agencies in New 
York touching Negro life—the family welfare 
group, baby saving movements, community and set- 
tlement houses, employment finding and stabilizing 
agencies, health education interests, churches—com- 
bine to wage warfare on the high infant mortality 
among Negroes in New York City and succeed in 


reducing the death rate of Negro babies to a point 
less than the infant mortality was ten years before 
and actually less than the white infant mortality in 
the very district where the Negro rate was more 
than three times that of the whole city prior to the 
campaign of course skeptics of the question of the 
Negro’s ability to become acclimated to northern 
city life are convinced of their error and are sil- 
enced. I do not lose sight of those prejudiced in- 
dividuals who see in this reduction itself a danger 
to so-called white supremacy and who would rather 
see Negro babies die than live. But this group is 
giving away to enlightened intelligence even though 
in many cases the motive is self-interest as they 
know that a disease germ knows no color line and a 
diseased Negro is a menace not only to well Ne- 
groes but to healthy white persons also. When we 
take cognizance of the increase in the Negro popu- 
lation in Detroit from 6,000 in 1916 to 85,000 in 
1926 and observe the satisfactory economic and in- 
dustrial adjustments there with the aid of the Ur- 
ban League, the Y. M. C. A., the Y. W. C. A., and 
the churches and other Negro and white social 
agencies, one can no longer say that competitive 
industrial life in the northern city is too strenuous 
for the Negro and that the agricultural south is 
the only place for him. 

Evidences of the effort being put forth to crystal- 
lize sentiment in favor of the Negro may be noted 
in nearly every important social agency, local or na- 
tional, where the two races come within the scope 
of the organizations’ activities. I think it is pretty 
generally conceded that regardless of the kindly 
attitude towards Negroes of a certain simple, harm- 
less type, the Negro as a group needs special aid, as 
does every handicapped group, to meet the issues of 
life and to rise in the social scale and thus to merit 
and receive the approbation of his dominant 
neighbors. 

Practically every community chest organization 
or local council social agencies in cities where Ne- 
groes constitute a goodly proportion of the popula- 
tion has noted the social needs among this element 
of the citizenry and many of them have inter-racial 
committees as member agencies, and support definite 
pieces of social work in behalf of the Negro popula- 
tion. The Boy Scouts of America, the Federal 
Council of Churches of Christ in America, and the 
Young Men’s Christian Association have national 
inter-racial committees and the American Social Hy- 
giene Association, the Young Men’s Christian As- 
sociation, the Young Women’s Christian Associa- 
tion and the International Big Brother and Big 
Sister organizations have special work going on in 
behalf of the Negro population, and in all of these 
organizations except one, there is Negro representa- 
tion on their governing boards. 

Most criticism by Negroes of activities with the 
Negro group is based upon uncertainty as to the 
best method to solve the problem. The Negroes are 
not satisfied with half a loaf. The whites are not 
inclined to give a whole loaf. In the shuffle, many 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 99 


cases of injustice may be noted. Many cases of 
fruitless effort accompanied by excellent intentions 
may be recorded. But the curve indicating the 
trend is upward, and a better day is dawning for 
race relations in America. 

‘The migration of Negroes to the North has been 
accompanied by a tremendous migration of the 
southern whites to the North. Northern capital 
and business interest are being directed in a greater 
degree annually to the South. The former move- 
ment has precipitated an increasing interest in the 
problems of the Negro on the part of the northern 


whites and the latter has generated a stronger re- 
solve on the part of southern whites to make an hon- 
est effort to help solve the racial difficulties in the 
interest of the country as a whole as well as in the 
South. The meeting together of these three points 
of view—that of the northern white, that of the 
southern white and that of the Negro—will pro- 
duce an interesting understanding and will actually 
result in a better attitude towards the Negro on 
the part of the whites. America will profit as a 
consequence and the cause of human understanding 
and betterment will be promoted. 


ARABESQSE 
By FRANK HORNE 


Down in Georgia 
a danglin’ nigger 
hangin’ in a tree 


_.. kicks holes in the laughing sunlight— 
A little red haired 
Trish girl . . . grey eyes 
and a blue dress— 


A little black babe 


ina lacy white cap... 


The soft red lips 


of the little red head 


kiss 
so tenderly 


the little black head— 


grey eyes smile 
into black eyes 
and the gay sunlight 
laughs joyously 
ina burst of gold... 
Down in Georgia 
a danglin’ nigger 
hangin’ 1n a tree 
_.. kicks holes in the laughing sunlight— 


PHANTOM COLOR LINES — 


*. By T. ArRnotp HILi 


BA) W much of the Negro’s failure to: se- 


cure employment is his own fault? 
5) bo] Many would answer that most posi- 
BJ} tions are denied because of circum- 

223 stances chargeable to race. They would 
tell aptly of instances in which forces beyond the 
control of the colored applicant or worker kept him 
out of a job or retarded his promotion. Eligibility 


would not be questioned since chivalry in war and. - 


long citizenship are presumed to establish fitness ; 


and since the Negro’s bravery in battle and. loyalty. 


to country are acknowledged facts, he is by virtue of 
such entitled to employment. This irrational con- 
ception of values is passing, but it still clings to a 
class who regards such historical shibboleths as 
prima facea evidence of acceptability. 

Racial prejudice—seldom caste prejudice—is to 
the casual observer the cause of practically all the 
dilemmas Negroes encounter in their occupations. 
A worker, seeing his fellow white workers advanc- 
ing above him, can assign no cause for it other than 
disfavor for his race and a corresponding favor for 
all other races and nationalities. 

This is of course a complex question. In it is 
the recalcitrance of labor unions, the open and subtle 
antagonism of the snobbish employee, the deliberate 
revolt of light-headed youth whose bias permits of 
little reasoning on this or any other subject, the nai- 
vete of the employer who honestly believes the Ne: 
gro incapable of skilled or professional tasks, the 


dogma of employers who blatantly admit their color 


prejudices, the traditional hatred of class units who 
fear the entrance of Negroes into unaccustomed 
fields, and the public ignorance of the measured steps 
Negroes have made in recent years. In it, too, is 
the listlessness of Negro workers, their failure to 
grasp the subjectiveness of manual labor, the result 
of which is the absence of a middle group profitably 
employed, intra-racial antagonism revolting against 
Negro supervision in plants and the unchecked here- 
sies_respecting industrial education against which 
seldom an effective protest is uttered. 

I know Negroes who have worn down their mo- 
rale in a fruitless effort to secure decent living. I 
know many who have been discharged when their 
racial identity became known. Such incidents, and 
the mockery which makes them incidents, are re- 
erettable. They suggest a tonic that might have 
found place in Stuart Chase’s ‘““Trasedy of Waste.” 
But even at this point, where unfairness is plainly 
revealed. we ask if the Negro should not share a 
part of the blame for the state of public thought that 
permits such experiences to continue unabated? 


That this has happened so frequently to well-trained 
Negro youth is of itself reason to ask what is being , 
done to prevent it. 

‘‘“A bird may be shot upward to the skies by a 
foreign force; but it rises in.the true sense of the 
word, only when it spreads its own wings and soars 
by its own living power. So a man may be thrust 
upward into a conspicuous place by outward acci- 
dents, but he rises only in so far as he exerts him- 
self, and expands his best faculties, and ascends by a 
free effort to a noble region of thought and action.” 
‘Thus did William Ellery Channing define “eleva- 
tion” for the working classes. Applying this for- 
muta to Negro workers one is moved to overlook 
failures because the past has not provided oppor- 
tunity for independent thought and action. Mem- 
bers of this race did not emerge from slavery free 
moral agents of their own destinies. Freed in the 
latter half of the nineteenth century they helped 
America struggle for and secure ascendancy over 
her European rivals. 

But they could not rise when slavery had left them 
doubtful of their own value, unprepared for indus- 
trial labor and illiterate. Negroes were emerging 
from serfdom when the princely fortunes of the 


‘elder captains of wealth were taking form. They 


had neither personal qualifications of heart or mind 
and they had no encouragement from others to cor- 
ner the untouched resources that are the founda- 
tion of big estates. The Negro had to be educated. 
He had to house himself without the aid of masters. 
He had to work to feed himself and family; there 
was no time for planning a future. 

There is no desire to cavil over the racial short- 
comings that may be traced to the effects of slavery. 
The criticism is not that the race did not make pre- 
eminent progress in occupational spheres, but rather 
that today they give little thought to achieving it. 

The proportion of Negroes ten years of age and 
over gainfully employed, approximately sixty per 
cent, is larger than that of any other group in the 
census reports for 1920. The distribution is like- 
wise disproportioned. Of the 4,824,151 Negroes 


- employed, the proportion engaged in the trades, pro- 


100 


fessional service and clerical occupations is far below 
the average for all classes. The average in domestic 
and personal service is higher and in transportation 
the average is not far below. They are numerically 
strong in agriculture, forming 16.8 per cent of the 
workers employed in this industry. They are losing 
ground in domestic and personal service. They have 
usually been emploved when white labor was not 
available and often discharged when the white short- 


EBONY AND. TOPAZ 101 


age subsided. ‘Though they have made undeniable 
progress in recent years, expanding their diversifi- 
cation until it includes in New York and Chicago 
practically all important occupations, they are still 
confined to unskilled and the most onerous tasks, and 


are often underpaid. The cessation of immigration. 


from abroad, if continued long enough, will un- 
doubtedly be beneficial to them. — If the immigra- 
tion restrictions are modified so as to permit throngs 


of aliens to rush to our shores, competition between. 
Negroes and immigrants will again be set up just. 


as it was in the sixties and seventies when results 
disastrous to Negroes ensued. All in all the future 
is uncertain. It rests upon the Negro’s own appli- 
cation to a degree of indispensability that will make 
replacement unnecessary and expensive. 


Some progress is being made in this direction, 
doubtless the result of exposure to rigid industrial 
requirements. Critical observations of themselves 
by groups of workers, called to discuss their prob- 
lems in industry, are typical of the introspection 
going on in many parts of the country. The follow- 
ing Comments were made in such a conference in 
Milwaukee: 


“An attendant at an oil filling station said his 
ungovernable temper had caused him to lose several 
jobs. On his present job he has seen some of the 
white attendants “balled out” by the superintendent 
for various reasons but took it calmly. ‘The follow- 
ing day all seemed well. The men did not lose 
their temper and quit work. He was following their 
example now and felt if other Negroes did likewise 
they would not change jobs so much and learn there 
is really nothing to a lot of this “balling out.” 

“A moulder having been on one job about two 
and one-half years said, ‘Every day I work side by 
side with white men, some have been snobbish but 
are my best friends.’ Men who have moulded many 
years longer than himself have given him a number 
of fine points which he. didn’t know. Feels if col- 
ored men in various lines take the same interest with 
other colored men who may be’ new on the job it 
will be of much help, Also found since he has 
become a home owner he gains more respect from the 
superintendent, 


“A sand-blaster said that he has had audience with 
the foundry superintendent as to why some colored 
men were not promoted to mechanical jobs.. Super- 
intendent felt Negroes couldn’t make good on tech- 
nical work, seemed to be thick headed. Said he 
noticed white boys were given jobs as apprentices 
and were better qualified from a technical point of 
view. He also said the Negro’s temper and lack 
of stability in many instances had caused foremen to 
refuse them jobs in their department. He stated one 
colored man had nine fights on a job in one day, 

“Mr. J. said he had been a moulder on one job 
four years. There are a number of jobs, particularly 
the better paying jobs, which are not given Negroes, 
Some moulding jobs pay whites more than Negroes 
on same pattern. He said that most of the preju- 


dices which he had experienced came from sub- 
foremen because they were prejudiced.” 

The Negro worker lacks ‘apperception. He is 
part of an industrial plant but not part of the in- 
dustrial life of a community. He does not think 
serigusly of. his work as he does of his lodge and 
his church. Unlike the professional man who knows 
the organizations he should join, the laws and the 
ethics he must obey, the fee he is to collect, the peri- 
odicals he should read, and certain routine he must 
follow, the manual worker enters upon his duties 
knowing nothing of and caring less for the beset- 
ments he is sure to encounter. He philosphizes on. 
the “Negro problem,” but never on the economic 
side of it except to assign causes for failure. It is 
not exceptional to find one who can recite verbatim 
long passages from a ritual of a lodge and who can 
interpret adequately its purposes and precepts. 

Recently I heard presidents of two Negro colleges 
say that not enough attention is being given to the 
men and women who toil with their hands. One 
felt that the whole system of industrial education in 
the private schools and colleges will have to be re- 
shaped, in order to meet the demands of today. ‘Uhe 
other believed that the average Negro worker, as 
distinguished. from _the professional man, does not 
know “what its all about.” Colored employees are 
far removed from the problems which concern, or- 
ganized workers. They take little or no pains to 
learn the laws. which govern and protect wage- 
earners in the various states of the union. ‘They are 
unfamiliar with the charges of scabbing and the 
significance of these charges made against them so 
often by union members, They are unacquainted 
with the successes of members of their race who have 
won, by virtue of personal worth, places in the 
skilled and industrial forces of the country. They 
still expect advances in positions without correspond- 
ing advances in preparation, 

The more than sixty national secret and fraternal 
organizations among Negroes in the United States 
have an estimated membership of upwards of two 
million five hundred thousand. Their property 
holdings are thought to exceed twenty-five million 
dollars. They have large bank deposits in white 
institutions, sometimes said to aggregate more than 
a million dollars in a separate bank. ‘They make 
extended plans for sickness and death but little pro- 
vision for economic security. They have great diff- 
culty financing a building of modest dimensions. 
The added strength to these fraternal organizations 
and to the race, if they should give attention to 
business and commerce, would be tremendous. The 
potentialities for corporal development by virtue of 
resources, material and human in these fraternal or- 
ganizations, would long have been seized upon by 
any group properly conscious of its strength and 
sufficiently aware of the relationship between eco- 


nomics and the whole problem of the Negro in this 
country, 


There were in 1926, according to the Negro Year 


Book, 47,000 churches with 5,000,000 communi- 


102 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


cants and 46,000 Sunday schools with 3,000,000 
scholars. Church properties were valued at $98,- 
500,000. They contribute comfortable sums to home 
and foreign missions, have some splendid denomi- 
national publishing houses, make provisions for re- 
tired ministers and give large sums to educational 
and beneficent institutions, The Negro church is 
the most poignant illustration of organization the 
race possesses. But their material contributions 
have been confined almost wholly to the acquiring 
and building of church properties. There is latent 
within this group, long accustomed to unified effort, 
monetary and mental resources that should be re- 
leased tor more substantial racial achievement. 

ln charging that the Negro lacks apperception 1 
am not forgetting the criticisms of inethciency which 
so frequently are lodged against them by those who 
know only part of the problem. As to how pro- 
ficient a group of colored workers is when compared 
with a similar group of workers of another race 
there is considerable difference of opinion among 
employers who hire them. What we often mistake 
for lack of ability or lack of will to do is but an 
effect, the cause of which has deep psychological 
foundation. Thus the significance of work in the 
pattern of life is not appreciated. Inability to re- 
move the obstacles of racial discrimination has 
dwarfed the faculties the Negro needs for this con- 
ception. As a consequence he reasons that a job is 
but a job and that no matter how industrious he 
may become, he will remain hopelessly tied to casual 
occupations. 

In the midst of such despondency the National 
Negro Business League can never thrive to the point 
its leaders would have it. The trouble is not wholly 
with the merchants. It is partly within the cerebral 
reactions of the masses of Negroes to Negro busi- 
ness; for the same disregard for economic relation- 
ship and value we have observed in industry and 
commerce is a vital deterrent to the success of busi- 
ness operated by the race. A Negro Business League 
must have other purposes than those which are con- 
nected with business. If Negro business would suc- 
ceed it must deal with a state of public mind which 
has not yet seen the parts of the “problem” in their 
relationship to the whole. There is room for corre- 
lation of effort in this field on the part of the Busi- 
ness League, the lodges, the churches, the schools 
and the social agencies. 


The prominence given today to the cultural 
achievements by Negroes makes it more necessary 
than ever that the economic side of Negro life should 
be strengthened. Most of the researches and prac- 
tically all books have omitted discussions of this 
phase of Negro life. We need a more positive ma- 
terial foundation to maintain the host of intellec- 
tuals we so proudly boast of today. More than one 
professional man has moved within the past six 
months because there was not enough stability and 
permanence to Negro workers to support them. 


That we are denied opportunities for employ- 
ment is partly due again to our neglect through our 
failure to popularize the successes attained at work. 
There is many an employer honestly ignorant of 
what we have achieved. There are a number who 
sincerely believe that trouble is fomented whenever 
white and colored workers are associated together. 
There are those who still persist that cold weather 
can not be endured by sons of Ham from the torrid 
regions of the South. There are perhaps pioneers 
who have sacrificed along with their intellectual 
brothers and who have made valuable contributions 
to race relationship of whom we do not know. 
Their exploits have not been given publicity and as 
such they do not provide incentives for others to 
do likewise nor illustrate the possibilities in a field 
in which our capacity is so often questoned. 


A large share of the Negro’s failure to secure em- 
ployment is his own fault—not so much the fault of 
the job-seeker, but more the indifference of those 
whose positions entitle them to lead. We would im- 
prove the training which our schools are giving, 
adding courses that once were thought unnecessary 
because of the limitations in employment. We 
would appeal to a fair American sentiment to live 
up to appropriate ideals of democracy. We would 
have our white youth increase the understanding it 
is so rapidly acquiring of Negro life. We would 
continue to advise organized groups of employees to 
annex their fellow colored workers. But we would 
insist upon a more mature understanding and con- 
centration than the Negro has yet given his work 
problems. In the guidance of this knowledge he 
must be helped by his leaders who have at their 
command resources for the infusion of the high 
spiritual substance against which foreign forces will 
thrust in vain, 


DRAWING .FOR -MUEAELOGES—Number.2 
By Richard Brace 


DRAWING FOR;MULAETQES—Number 3 
By Richard Bruce 


THE CHANGING STATUS OF 
THE MULATTO 


By E. B. REuTER 


ae T IS a generally known fact that in the 
WOKE Oza Negro population of the United States 
>y\ byes the group of bi-racial ancestry has con- 
W/ tributed more than its proportionate 
==@) share of prominent individuals. But 
the degree to which this is true is perhaps not re- 
alized outside the group of professional students. 
‘The names that come first to mind when the ques- 
tion of racial talent and leadership is mentioned 
— Douglass, Washington, Tanner, Williams, 
Aldridge, Chestnutt, DuBois, Johnson, et al— 
are not the names of black men. Paul Laurence 
Dunbar, Kelly Miller, Roland Hayes and Robert R. 
Moton are perhaps the only men of relatively un- 
contaminated Negro blood who have achieved a 
national reputation. In all fields of endeavor, in 
proportion to their number in the general Negro 
population, the mulattoes have furnished a dispro- 
portionate percentage of the conspicuously successful 
individuals, 

All through the period of Negro residence in 
America, the outstanding individuals of the race, in 
the great majority of cases, have been men of mixed 
blood. In the various slave insurrections they had 
a prominent part. Within the slave regime they 
were the ones least accommodated to the status of 
servitude, the ones who most often came into con- 
flict with the institution, the ones who most fre- 
quently led others in revolt against the status. In 
the realm of intellectual and semi-intellectual pur- 
suits their part was conspicuous. Benjamin Ban- 
neker, perhaps the most capable of the early Ameri- 
can Negroes, was a free man because of his descent 
from a white woman. James Durham, the Negro 
physician, was a mulatto. George Lisle, Andrew 
Bryan, Samuel Haynes, and other early preachers 
of note were men of mixed ancestry. In the later 
days of the slave institution the percentage of mixed 
bloods among the leaders was high. With one or 
possibly two exceptions the dozen or twenty col- 
ored men most prominent in the anti-slavery agi- 
tation were mulattoes. In the post Civil War dec- 
ades the mixed bloods were conspicuous in the po- 
litical and other activities opened to the members 
of the race. In the ministry, in the early literary 
and artistic strivings, and in the struggle against 
oppression the mulattoes played a leading role. 

The significance of this distribution of superior 
men has commonly been misunderstood. It seems 
on first blush to be somehow indicative of an un- 
derlying difference in capacity, to imply a marked 


superiority rooting in the fact of a white ancestry 
and relationship. This reading of the facts has 
been all the more acceptable for the reason that it 
contributes, in a not too subtle way, to the racial 
self-feeling of the culturally dominant group. The 
egocentric bias of popular thought has been rein- 
forced by the biological bias of an unarrived psy- 
chology. The mixed ancestry of so many Negro 
leaders has given support to the biological bias at 


the same time that it has served as evidence to prove 


the incapacity of members of the Negro group. 

In the situation it is not beyond understanding 
that Negro writers have not emphasized the fact of 
mulatto leadership, that they have sometimes min- 
imized it, and that in some cases they have attempted 
to refute the implied or asserted inferiority of the 
race by denial of the facts themselves. But such 
tactics are futile. Not only that: they are ill-ad- 
vised. ‘The facts will be known and in the present 
case it is to the advantage of the racial group that 
they be known. In the cultural superiority of the 
mulatto lies what is, when comprehensively under- 
stood, the most complete refutation of the theory 
of Negro inferiority. 

It is, however, only within the past decade that 
the facts have been comprehensively understood and 
a tenable hypothesis has gained currency. And even 
today, and even among students of social and race 
psychology, the explanation of social phenomena in 
biological terms is perhaps the rule rather than the 
exception. 


i 


N explanation of these facts it is usual to resort 

to the doctrine of racial inequality. Since the 
white man is superior to the Negro, the mulattoes, 
who are intermediate between the racial extremes, 
are superior to the one and inferior to the other. 
It does not appear to be necessary, however, to re- 
sort to this order of explanation in order to account 
for all the facts before us. 

Almost from the beginning of Western culture 
in America, distinctions were made in the servile 
class on the basis of blood intermixture. This was 
in part the result of the doctrine of white racial 
superiority. But there were other facts making for 
class separation on this basis. 

The first mulattoes were of course the result of 
primary crosses. They were the sons and daughters 
of white men or women. In consequence there was 
often a sentimental factor operating to favor the 
child. The relations between the parents of the 


107 


108 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


mixed-blood children, at least in some cases, were 
based on mutual affection. White men were some- 
times inordinately fond of their colored babies, This 
matter of relationship and personal affection was a 
thing of first-rate importance in those cases where 
the mulattoes were children of the slave owner 
or of some member of his family. Being the owner 
as well as the father or uncle of the mulatto child 
he was in a position to give it special consideration. 
The cases where the masters were the slave owners 
of their own relatives and favored them above other 
slaves are numerous. Such children. were often 
freed, sometimes they were educated, and generally 
they were directed into the more stimulating and 
less deadening sorts of occupation. 


Another important factor in the differentiation 
came in very early. Some of the mulattoes were 
the children of white mothers and Negro fathers. 
When the question of the legal status of the Neg- 
roes came to be defined in law, a distinction was 
made on the basis of parentage. It became a rule 
at law that the status of children should follow that 
of the mother with the result that some percentage 
of the mulatto children were free persons. This 
group perhaps did not include a very considerable 
proportion of the total mulatto population “but it 
contributed to the increase of the group of free Neg- 
roes and to the percentage of mulattoes in the group. 
The frequent emancipation by slave holders of their 
mixed-blood relatives also added to the mulatto 
character of the free Negro population. 


Within the slave order itself the mulattoes were 
commonly favored. ‘The assumption of the greater 
native ability of the persons of mixed blood led to 
their being trained for skilled and semi-skilled occu- 
pations. They were most frequently selected for 
positions of responsibility and for positions involv- 
ing personal and confidential relations. ‘They were 
everywhere in demand for house servants. They 
were more generally than the average of the popula- 
tion, city residents. Whatever the reason, and the 
reasons were different in different cases, the mulat- 
toes were commonly assigned to the more stimulat- 
ing types of work, were given more education and 
freedom, and had the advantage of more contact 
and association with cultured people. 


The distinctions thus made in the Negro popula- 
tion afforded the mulattoes on the average more 
freedom and opportunity and this registered very 
early in the greater cultural advance of these per- 
sons. “Chey furnished most of the individuals of 
any prominence and achievement. ‘They came to 
occupy a somewhat special status; they stood some- 
what apart from the field hands and common. la- 
borers. This class division was of course nowhere 
complete. ‘There were always black men in the 
special positions and there were always mulattoes 
among the field and labor gangs. Some of the 
leaders were black men. But the distinction was 
sufficiently marked to be recognized by the Negroes 


and the mulattoes as well as by the whites. And 
the explanation, subsequent for the most part to 
the fact, came to be the same for each of the groups. 


Ill 


HE external situation was reflected in the 

social and psychological attitudes; the senti- 
ments and beliefs came to be in harmony with the 
external social order. Men developed the type of 
mind and the set of habits necessary to a tolerable 
life. The white group, superior in status and cul- 
ture, developed the psychological characteristics that 
go with power and responsibility. “The Negroes, re- 
pressed and backward, accommodated themselves to 
the inevitable and developed the reciprocal type of 
mind. 

In the situation, the mulatto was in cultural ad- 
vance as well as in appearance an intermediate type 
of man. His white relationship, his somewhat su- 
perior status, and his greater degree of accomplish- 
ment raised him somewhat above the general level 
of the Negro population. But the same group of 
facts placed him below as well as outside the white 
group. The whites treated them as somewhat su- 
perior to the Negroes. ‘They thought them supe- 
rior and expressed the belief in their treatment. At 
the same. time they believed them to be inferior to 
the whites and treated them as inferiors. The Neg- 
roes, reflecting the white attitude in this as they 
did in most other matters, looked upon the mulat- 
toes as being of a higher caste and as being natively 
superior men. In much the same way the mulat- 
toes came typically to conceive of themselves. They 
were a numerically minor group and the concep- 
tions that they came to hold of themselves and of 
their natural place in the social order was deter- 
mined in major part by the beliefs and attitudes 
of the major groups. The Negroes looked up to 
them, they looked down upon the Negroes; the 
whites looked down upon them, they looked up to 
the whites. A body of popular doctrine thus devel- 
oped out of the cultural situation. ‘The separation 
and relative status was a fact imposed from with- 
out. It favored the mixed bloods at the expense 
of the unmixed Negroes. The resulting sentiments 
and beliefs presently came to operate as an inde- 
pendent force making for the perpetuation and in- 
crease of the separation that, in the first instance, 
gave a basis for the body of belief. 

As the differentiation advanced, the mulatto 
sense of superiority increased. The internal bonds, 
which distinguish a genuine class organization from 
a group held together by external forces, formed 
and strengthened. The mulattoes developed a com- 
mon body of sentiment and belief that fostered their 
closer association. ‘They held themselves more and 
more aloof from the backward Negroes and avoided 
association with them. In some cases very definite 
and highly exclusive mulatto societies were formed. 
Color or its absence came more or less to be a badge 
of the élite. This separation, seldom complete and 
often- potential rather than ove ae well 


-into- the ‘present period. - 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 109 


It was inevitable ‘that the Negro and mulatto 
individuals of education and refinement should: de- 
sire association with persons of like culture. They 
had little in common with the illiterate laboring 
groups. They lived in a somewhat different unj- 
verse. Their whole cultural orientation was toward 
the white rather than toward the Negro group. 
Ethically they were frequently more white than 
Negro. In tastes and ideals, interests and ambi- 
tions, standards and education, they were drawn to 
the dominant culture group. Opportunity for tol- 
erable life and individual success was, or at least 
seemed to be, greater there. 

But, regardless of education and refinement, they 
were excluded from participation in the white so- 
ciety. An assumption of inferiority and unclean- 
ness attached to them and the traditional definitions 
classed them with the Negroes. They resented the 
classification. They had little in common with the 
rank and file of the Negroes with whom association 
was often offensive and always depressing. In the 
situation they were typically discontented, unhappy, 
rebellious persons. There was a long period during 
which the educated mulatto was a pathetic figure. 
His wishes could not be satisfied within the exist- 
ing social order. 

In some cases there was a possibility of individual 
escape. Where the physical marks were not con- 
spicuous, they simply passed as white men. The 
number who have thus changed their racial classi- 
fication with a change of residence is often grossly 
exaggerated, but that the number was considerable 
there is no doubt. This became increasingly fre- 
quent as continued intermixture and European im- 
migration tended to blur the lines of race distinction, 
as the technique for concealing tell-tale racial marks 
increased, and as the anonymity of urban life in- 
creased. But large or small in amount, it is an 
evidence of the mulattoes, protest against an anoma- 
lous social status. But it was no solution except in 
individual and exceptional cases. 

Others accepted, at least outwardly, the inevita- 
ble, identified themselves with the Negro groups, 
and assumed its leadership. For this they were 
prepared by the facts of superior education, a longer 
and more varied experience, a certain prestige, and 
a sense of superiority and self-confidence which the 
black group lacked because they lacked experience. 
The mulatto aristocracy was a generation or so 
ahead of the bulk of the race. They came to com- 
pose the bulk of the growing business and_profes- 
sional classes." This mulatto leadership the Negro 
group more or less willingly accepted. They could 
not do otherwise in the absence of education, stat- 
uS, experience, and self-confidence. 


LVi 


OT all the Negro leaders were mulattoes. 
They were more numerous and_ generally 
more prominent, capable, and influential. But there 
were also many influential black men. This was 
particularly frue in certain lines of work, as church 


leadership, where the absence of education was not 
a serious handicap. Since the church touched the 


* common Negro at so many points, the minister was 


always a man of local importance. The mulattoes 
never reached the dominating position in church af- 
fairs that they did in the professional and intellec- 
tual pursuits. 

There was also, at all times, a more or less un- 
analyzed opposition on the part of the Negroes to 
the mulatto leadership and representation. There 
was a vague irritation arising from the mulattoes’ 
assumption of superiority, an inarticulate desire 
among the masses for a black leadership. Even 
among his followers and admirers, Washington was 
often referred to in disappointed tones as a “Tittle 
yellow man.” The prominence in racial affairs of 
certain men has certainly been due in part to the 
fact that they were obviously and conspicuously not 
mixed bloods. 

As the general Negro population gained in edu- 
cation and advanced in economic status more of 
the latent talent of the race had opportunity to get 
expression. As educational opportunity was extend- 
ed through the public schools and in some degree 
equalized the talented children of the masses had 
some chance to emerge. And the success of every 
black child contributed to the growing self-confi- 
dence of the group. As time goes on the sheer 
weight of numbers will also be felt. The Negro 
group is four or five times as large as the mixed- 
blood group. Assuming the practical equality of 
native ability in the two groups, the Negroes will 
produce four or five times as many outstanding men 
when the opportunities of the groups have been 
equalized. 

With the general economic and cultural advance 
of the group there is a greatly increased need for 
educated men. The number of physicians and law- 
yers and other professional men is far below the 
group needs. ‘This has provided and will continue 
to provide an opportunity for the ambitious black 
boy. In every group leadership comes chiefly from 
the favored classes. It is only in exceptional times, 
when the need for superior men exceeds the capacity 
of the aristocracy to produce them, that talented in- 
dividuals born in the lower orders are able to 
emerge. In the present and recent past the mulat- 
to class, from which Negro leadership has tradi- 
tionally come, is not able to supply the number of 
leaders needed. 

The growing solidarity of the race operates to 
the same end. Regardless of the evaluative attitude 
that one takes toward the growth of racial self con- 
sciousness, it makes a place for an additional num- 
ber of popular leaders and provides a background 
of racial self-respect that assures their appearance. 
And it makes certain that, other things approximate- 
ly equal, the individuals not conspicuously unlike 
the masses in physical appearance will have some 
initial advantage. Because of or in spite of con- 
spicuously Negroid features, superior individuals 
will have an increased opportunity to rise. 


110 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


There is at the present time another force of some 
importance operating to equalize the opportunities of 
the Negroes and mulattoes. This is the growing 
disposition to judge the work of Negroes by the 
same standards as are elsewhere applied. 

There have always been many sentimental and 
non-critical individuals ready to applaud any ar- 
tistic effort of a Negro no matter how crude. They 
have done the cause of Negro advancement much 
harm as have also the white faddists who are al- 
ways ready to patronize any Negro who gains mo- 
mentary notoriety. 

But there is an increasing group of more or less 
influential men who have become skeptical of the 
doctrine of race superiority and of the popular idea 
that native talent and ability are localized in certain 
favored economic and social classes. ‘They are dis- 
posed to offer encouragement to unknown Negroes 
as well as to others of literary and artistic promise. 
Back of this interest, in some cases, is a belief that 
because of a peculiar racial temperament, Negroes 
are able to make a unique contribution to American 
culture. Others anticipate a distinctive culture con- 
tribution because the body of social experience of 
the Negroes is distinctive and peculiar. Still others 
look upon talent as a matter of individual variation 
as likely to appear in one place as another. They 
are concerned to discover and recognize it regardless 
of race or social class. 

This relatively new interest has the effect of 
stimulating the Negroes’ artistic efforts. They are 
assured of an appreciative and sympathetic audience 
for any meritorious work. So far as the produc- 
tions of individuals are evaluated in objective terms, 
the Negro and the mulatto stand on exactly the 
same level, and a difference in the amount of tal- 
ent emerging from the two groups is a measure 
either of the artificial differences in education, tra- 
dition, and economic status still existing, or of a dif- 
ference in the number of favorably varient men 
that the two groups produce. 


V 


LL such changes operate to a reduction in the 

advantage that the mixed bloods have tradi- 
tionally enjoyed. In certain fields the Negro gets 
recognition and award proportional to accomplish- 
ment. 

The present tendency of liberal-minded white 
people to discount the accidents of birth and eco- 
nomic status and to recognize individuals on the 
basis of personality and inherent worth removes in 
part one of the greatest handicaps of the Negro. 
He is not prejudged. There is no longer an as- 
sumption that his capacity varies inversely as his 
skin color. This new attitude of the liberal group 
stimulates and reinforces the growing self-respect 
of the black man. He can be a Negro, he can 
even be proud of the fact, without of necessity 
being a fool. The fact of Negro blood does not 
of necessity carry with it the presumption of in- 
capacity. It may put certain more or less incon- 
venient obstacles in the way of the individual’s ad- 
varrce, But the obstacles are external: they are in 


the social organization rather than in the psychology 
of the individual. External handicaps may be over- 
come. But there was no advance possible so long 
as the individual Negro accepted the general be- 
lief in the innate incapacity of the black man. 


This change in the Negro’s attitude toward him- 
self removes one important advantage historically 
enjoyed by the mixed bloods. There is no longer 
the same assumption of mulatto superiority. The 
Negroes are rapidly developing a confidence in their 
own ability to manage their own affairs and to 
produce their own talented men. 


As a result of the changing situation there is an 
increasing number of relatively black Negroes 
among the successful and prominent men. 


In the future we may anticipate a farther de- 
cline in the preponderance of mixed bloods in the 
economic, political, and intellectual leadership. With 
the equalization of opportunity the Negroes, assum- 
ing equality in the distribution of native ability, will 
produce an increasing proportion of the prominent 
men. 


But the advantage that the mixed bloods have 
enjoyed, and in a measure still enjoy, will continue. 


It is not reasonable to anticipate that the differ- 
ence will disappear in one generation. The mixed 
bloods have a long start and their tradition of su- 
periority will persist. The doctrine of racial in- 
equality is perhaps more firmly fixed in popular 
thought at the present time than it has ever been. 
It is not likely to be dislodged in any reasonable 
period of time. So long as it persists the mulattoes 
will enjoy an intangible but very real advantage 
that will get expression in their relative degree of 
success. It will require a long period for the 
Negroes to overcome the handicap of the later start 
and the popular assumption of lower capacity. 

At the present time the mixed bloods occupy a 
somewhat superior status. As a result superior in- 
dividuals are attracted to the group and tend to re- 
inforce and perpetuate the status. Individuals born 
and reared in the group have an initial advantage 
in the struggle for success. 

Again, the mixed bloods have the advantage of 
better education and more secure economic posi- 
tion. This gives a prestige at the same time that 
it assures better education, better homes, and greater 
economic security for the succeeding generations. 
This operates and will continue to operate to the 
advantage of the mulatto group. 

But these differences are, on the whole, on the 
decline. With the spread of education, the growth 
of race consciousness, and the attitude of the Jib- 
eral white people, the Negroes of talent will more 
and more come to the front. Ultimately, if the 
races are in reality equal in capacity, the Negroes 
will produce as many prominent men, in proportion 
to their number, as any other element in the pop- 
ulation. The fact that the mulattoes have in the 
past produced more prominent men ‘should be un- 
derstood as a simple and obvious consequence of 
the historic circumstances that have favored them, 


SUFFRAGE 


By WILLIAM PICKENS 


ers, the importance of the ae to 
vote cannot be overestimated. In its 
last analysis political suffrage means 
brute force, as one discovers in a state 
of war, or in the hands of a policeman. The im- 
portance of the right to vote is minimized by men 
only when they seek to deprive others of the right; 
it is never minimized when they seek or defend it 
for themselves. 

‘The right of the individual to cast a vote equal 
to the vote of any other individual subject to the 
power of the same government—this right has 
climbed wearily in American history. And the 
suffrage articles of many of our state constitutions 
indicate that there is yet a long climb ahead. The 
right to vote has been supported by two different 
theories: the theory of “natural rights” and the 
theory of the good of the state. The natural rights 
theory looks backward; the good-of-the-state theory 
looks forward. The good of the state, which I in- 
terpret to mean the highest average good of every- 
body in the state, will prove to be the victorious 
idea. “Natural rights” is a beautiful sentiment, 
but one right is not more natural than any other 
in the state, where all right depends upon might. 
The good of the state is a progressive idea, based 
in reason and experience, and that may be advanced 
even by experimentation. ‘Today the individual or 
group which seeks to acquire or defend its right 
to vote, must justify the claim in the good of the 
whole people, and not in poetic theories about 
primitive individualism and original compacts. 

On the other hand, the idea of the good of the 
state is limited in its usefulness by the prevailing 
idea as to who or what constitutes the state. If the 
emperor be the state, the good of the state is a very 
small good. If the imperial family and the nobility 
be the state, the majority of inhabitants are left out; 
for the whole population cannot join the nobility, 
unless like the Romans they make all the rest of the 
world their subjects and slaves. And if, as in Miss- 
issippi, the state means only the white inhabitants, 
the pursuit of the good of the state will, at its best, 
aim to include less than fifty per cent of the people. 
Certain limited classes are excluded more or less 
temporarily from participation in government,— 
such as children and other dependents and wards. 
Children up to a certain age would be excluded by 
nature if not by law. Their exclusion is only tem- 
porary. They are the future state. Idiots and crim- 
inals are excluded; that is, the known and registered 
idiots and the convicted and incarcerated criminals. 
But idiots may become sane, and law-breakers may 


111 


become law-abiding, so that even these classes suffer 
only a conditional and possibly temporary exclusion. 

These types of exclusion are, therefore, more 
reasonable, or rather less unreasonabe, than racial 
exclusion. Exclusion on account of race is a per- 
manent disability, as irrational as it is inalterable. 
It is not a challenge to ambition but a fixed barrier. 
Apologists for racial disability have tried to justify 
it by references to children, paupers, criminals,—and 
they have used to cite the case of unenfranchised 
women, until the women destroyed the point of that 
citation by enfranchising themselves. But none of 
these cases parallels racial exclusion. Even economic- 
class exclusion is not a parallel. Excluded day- 
laborers might become capitalists and employers. 
The nearest parallel to the exclusion of a racial 
blood is the exclusion of some lower caste where law 
and tradition prevent the sons of such peasantry 
from rising above the status of their fathers. But 
even peasanthood may be overcome by social evolu- 
tion or political revolution. The barrier against 
race is without a rival the most reasonless of all 
barriers. 

Other apologists for racial exclusion remind us 
that even the favored race did not at first enjoy 
universally the right of suffrage; that the right was 
originally based in the possession of real estate, and 
advanced only gradually to a normal manhood basis. 
Inhabitants had to own so much real estate, so many 
acres, to vote. But the growth of industrial cities, 
where even the richest may not own acres of land, 
caused a change from this specific basis to an ad 
valorem basis, so that the voter no longer had to 
own so many acres but only real estate valued at so 
much, or on which he received a minimum rent or 
payed a minimum tax. Again, as industrial centers 
grew populous, it became evident that many good 
men in cities could not own even a foot of land, that 
there was not land enough to go round; and so a 
minimum valuation of personal property and belong- 
ings was admitted to qualify the voter. Later still 
it occurred to some that a man might not own any 
taxable property, real or personal; and yet be a 
human being and a decent member of society ; there- 
fore capitation taxes, poll taxes, were offered as com- 
promises. A fellow with no property could pay a 
tax on his head. But even this head-tax was a sur- 
viving mark of the tyranny of property, as the ap- 
pendix in the human body is a survival of some 
lower animal function. The battle front therefore 
advanced further toward manhood suffrage by re- 
ducing and minimizing taxes and offering alterna- 
tives and substitutes, such as service in the army, 
literacy, general intelligence, and even that indefin- 


112 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


able thing called “good moral character.” “Thus the 
tyranny of property, with its heraldry of taxes, died 
a slow and stubborn death, and in some communities 
it is not yet dead. 


This homage to the title-holder of property and 
to the so-called tax payer is ridiculous in the light 
of modern economic knowedge. It assumed that the 
whole burden of taxation and support of govern- 
ment rested on those who held the property and 
took the tax receipts. How slowly men’s minds 
came to understand that the greatest payment of tax 
is the indirect payment: that the heaviest tax is paid 
by those who work and consume honestly. The 
level of wages and of the cost of necessaries is in- 
fluenced by the tax burden of government. When a 
man buys a pair of shoes, he pays a share of the tax 
of. the factory that made them and of every middle- 
man that handled them; for the tax is a part of the 
expenses of the business and is figured into every 
pair of shoes. The tax is paid by every honest con- 
sumer of a hen from the hennery, of an apple from 
the, orchard, and of a peanut from the farm. ‘The 
poor. .man we pays the rent on a shack, pays the 
taxes, on that shack,—not the man who collects the 
rent.and gets the tax receipt. Those of us who own 
houses far rent, know how we arrive at fixing the 
rental figure against the tenant: first, we valine the 
house at more than we could sell it fon and decide 
that we must earn the usurious rate of ten percent 
on that valuation; to this we add fifty dollars a year 
for repairs, and do not make any repairs; then we 
add, the taxes, insurance, water rent, and all other 
imaginable. costs for the year. If we let the place 
by the-week, we next divide this sum by 48, instead 
of by 52,. allowing 4 weeks for improbable vacancies, 
and by dividing the debt 48 times, we find what 
the debtor must pay us 52 times in order to dis- 
charge it; and finally, when this quotient turns out 
to be $7 a week, we charge him $10, just to be on 
the safe side and to simplify bookkeeping. And yet 
in spite, of this chain of evidence, some people do not 
yet comprehend the truth that not those who get 
the tax receipts but those who work and honestly 
consume, especially those who work, pay the taxes, 
support ie government, and are enfiled to a vote. 


The humbler members even of the dominant ‘races 
lave had to overcome this false notion of the exclu- 
sive relationship of property to production and of 
tax receipts to the ultimate burden of government. 
‘And yét the exclusion of the unpropertied and the 
nén-tax-paying is no parallel to the ‘exclusion of a 
race or blood. A fee ‘simple deed can be acquired by 
‘the’ individual ; membership in a favored race cannot 
be acquired by the individual. If poverty be a bar to 
citizenship, it can be overcome; but those who have 
in their veins the blood of any race, will always have 
‘it, and their children will have it to a thousand gen- 
erations. “The exclusion of a sex is more nearly like 
the exclusion of a race. But even sex is permanent 
“only during the life of the individual; the children 
of ‘a voteless woman might be males and become 


voters. Besides, mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, 
who share the social and private economic life of the 
voters, can have more influence on their male elec- 
tors than could the members of any separate race. 
By every comparison it is clear that race is the most 
unreasonable basis for citizenship, law or “justice. 


The citizenship of the Negro is the real test of 
American democracy. The front of liberty has ad- 
vanced somewhat against the power and privilege of 
property but is being held back at the barricade of 
the color line. The first barrier was slavery. That 
was demolished in civil war. The way was next 
blocked by prejudice against ex-slaves, which con- 
tinues almost unabated against their free-born de- 
scendants. Sumner, Chase and Frederick Douglass 
believed that an emancipated people, unenfranchised, 
might fall into a condition worse than slavery: for 
in the slave somebody has a private investment and 
a personal interest, but an anomalously “free” peo- 
ple without rights or power would be like unclaimed 
cattle,—wild buffaloes to be hunted by whoever had 
the inclination. "To enfranchise ex-slaves was, of 
course a serious matter; an evil, but the lesser evil. 
Some say that so soon after emancipation was not 
“the best time” to enfranchise the Negro, and that 
he should have been educated and trained first. 
This argument makes two wrong assumptions: first, 
that real prejudice would be more willing that 
Negroes should get education than that they should 
get votes, and second, that the amendments made it 
necessary for unfit Negro individuals to be admitted 
to suffrage. The constitution forbids discrimina- 
tion against the Negro on account of race or pre- 
vious condition of servitude, but still permits dis- 
crimination on account of individual unfitness. 
Prejudice is not more willing that educated than 
that uneducated Negroes should vote, and the Ne- 
gro needs the vote to get education. The last fifty 
years bear no evidence that the unaided sentiment 
of Mississippi or South Carolina would have en- 
franchised the Negro in the next two hundred years. 
There has been but one time when those amend- 
ments could have been ratified, and that was be- 
fore the ex-slave-holding south regained complete 
local control. Logically, the only time when a 
thing can be done, is always the “best” time to do 
it; and the worst time in all eternity to do a thing 
is when it cannot be done. The conscience of the 
people, quickened by the sacrifices of the war, offered 
the opportunity of an epoch to broaden the base and 
strengthen the bulwark of popular suffrage. “An 
oligarchy of skin” is not more reasonable than one 
of titles or dollars. And we agree with Charles 
Sumner, the immortal democrat, that: “It is impos- 
sible to suppose that Congress will sanction gov- 


ernments . . . not founded on the consent of the 
governed.” ; 


Some say that the Negro should have come: to 


‘the voting status by slow and gradual stages, as did 


the white*man. ‘That is a fallacious argument: ‘it 
would be sound if the Negroes had been left alone 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 113 


in some separate territory, not to be governed or 
disturbed by others who voted. When a people is 
suddenly placed in an advanced environment, they 
must meet that environment by the educational, and 
hot by the evolutional, process. In the school of 
an exacting environment, centuries must be over- 
passed in a decade, milleniums in a generation; 
otherwise, instead of teaching it to our children in 
schools, we should leave them to discover, as their 
ancestors discovered, the organization of the solar 
system and the surgery of the vermiform appendix. 
If Japan, instead of adopting dynamite and_air- 
planes from the white man, had elected to evolve 
them slowly, as did the whites, that would have been 
nice—for everybody except Japan. Sumner and 
Douglass were immediately and abundantly justified 
by the double-decade of trickery and violence which 
followed the re-enfranchisement of the ex-slave- 
holders, from 1870 to 1890. Some of the tricks 
were: stealing and stuffing ballot boxes; false arrest 
the day before election and false counting the day 
after; voting “repeaters” or duplicating votes by 
thin tissue ballots; and sometimes by advertising the 
polling place as at one address and suddenly chang- 
ing it to another. The violence, ranging from ordi- 
nary thuggery to murder, continues slightly abated 
to the present moment, but most of the unlawful 
tricks have been enacted into trick laws. The 
courts were apathetic to the brutality and dishon- 
esty and have generally upheld the trick laws. 
These laws represent an effort to save the sickening 
conscience of the south, but they usually go only so 
far as to clothe dishonesty in legal immunity and 
specious respectability. Men said, as it were: “We 
are sick of robbing the Negro of his vote illegally, 
therefore we will revise the constitution and do it 
legally.” 

Constitutional conventions and legislatures en- 
deavored to regain political respectability by jug- 
gling property requirements, indefinite ‘educational 
tests,” residence and registration pitfalls, “good 
character” loopholes for the favored, and the threat 
of perjury against the disfavored. And in spite of 
the fact that all the registrars and other officers were 
white, some of these Negro-catching devices proved 
to be boomerangs to white applicants. Therefore 
South Carolina, the mother of nullification, seces- 
sion and oppression, in a desperate example to save 
the superior white majority of the south from be- 
ing surpassed by an inferior black minority, invented 
and enacted into law in 1895 the most brazen of all 
tricks,—the so-called ‘(Grandfather Clause.” .The 
general architecture of ‘grandfather’ legislation 
was this: first, the constitutional convention would 
lay down detailed and treacherous registration re- 
quirements for everybody in the state, with no men- 
tion of race or color,—and so far to square with 
the 15th amendment. But then a later clause or 
section would be added to the effect that those who 
were eligible or whose ancestors were eligible to 
vote in 1867 or 1868, could still register without 
these requirements. The essence of time in this lit- 


tle device exempted the whole white population from 
the consequences of its shortcomings and left the 
black population at the mercy of the all-powerful 


_ registrars,—who knew their business. For nearly 


two decades this travesty was enforced in Southern 
states until declared unconstitutional under an or- 
ganized attack of the Negro in 1914. 

Men thought to salvage political honor and to 
salve their remarkable religious consciences by legal- 
izing dishonesty. Many new constitutions were 
made, and their suffrage articles, with their laby- 
rinthine catch-clauses, reveal their origin and pur- 
pose. States with no trick to try, no trap to set, and 
no fundamental national law to evade, sometimes 
write the suffrage articles of their constitutions in a 
single page, half a page, or a paragraph or so. But 
when we come to a state like Alabama and its con- 
stitution of 1901, the suffrage article consists of 
seven closely printed pages with twenty sections,— 
every section being a double-jawed trap with the 
trigger under the thumb of the registrar. The 
humble citizen may even be required to “under- 
stand” the constitution, something which, after more 
than a hundred years of serious study, the Supreme 
Court has not yet accomplished. But the courts, in- 
cluding the Supreme Court, have connived at and 
abetted these tricks and trick laws. Usually they 
reduire the disfranchised and aggrieved Negro to 
prove what everybody, including the court, already 
knows: namely, that he was denied the right to 
vote on account of his race or color. What is well 
known may be the hardest thing to prove. But 
when uneducated officials in Alabama refuse to reg- 
ister a Negro graduate of Yale, Harvard or Tuske- 
gee, pretending to disqualify him on his lack of in- 
telligence and not on his race, the presumption ought 
to lie in favor of that Negro—in a court of justice. 

The worst trick, next to the “grandfather clause” 
itself, is the “white primary,” which is a survival 
of the era of force and violence, a relic of the time 
when anti-Negro mobs generally bluffed, bullied 
and beat black men from the polls. A white pri- 
mary conducted by the party which will also control 
the regular election, disfranchises the Negro as effec- 


- tually as if he were on the moon. For example, a 


white Democratic primary election in Mississippi 
requires that the voter shall be not only a Demo- 
crat but also white. In most southern states 
the Democratic primary election determines 
absolutely and invariably the result of the 
regular election,—and in such regular election 
the Negro can cast only a perfunctory and 
unnecessary vote to ratify the nominations al- 
service by enacting this bold trick into law and mak- 
ing it liable to more direct judicial attack. ‘This was 
the meaning of “The Nixon Case,” won by the 
colored people of El Paso in 1925. If “white pri- 
maries” are constitutional for Democrats, they are 
also lawful for Republicans, Socialists and all oth- 
ers; so that colored people, or any other minority 
race or class, could be disfranchised by any domi- 
nant political party. 


114 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


If a race primary is reasonable, a sex primary 
‘; more reasonable, and women may be kept out of 
office and power by the primary-exclusion method. 
Women should remmber that the anti-slavery strug- 
gle gave the first real impetus to woman-su “rage. 
And so long as women could not vote, they were 
continually comparing their situations to that of the 
enslaved or disfranchised Negro; but since women 
have become enfranchised, their leaders have changed 
into regular politicians, like the men, forgetting the 
former comradeship of their cause, dodging moral 
‘ssues and dealing in political expediences. But it 
was the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in Lon- 
don in 1840 which inspired its American women 
delegates to organize the first women’s rights con- 
vention in New York in 1848. Frederick Douglass, 
the great Negro anti-slavery leader, was a loyal 
and life-long friend of woman-suftrage. As late as 
1870 a Vermont constitutional convention turned 
down woman suffrage by the disastrous vote of 233 
to 1,—but less than fifty years later women were 
enfranchised by ratified act of Congress. Will 
white women now prove that they are indeed the 
“equal of men” in political chicanery, or will they 
remember that colored women are still disfran- 
chised by trick laws and maladministration ? 

Men like a good excuse even for a bad action. 
Therefore some say: “The Blacks of the south 
should take their own right to vote. The law is on 
their side. They are the majority in some localities. 
White men would die for their rights.” All this 
declamation is the merest bunk. The Negro may 
be a majority in some locality, but he is a minority 
‘1 the south as a whole, and a still smaller minority 
in the nation. State lines are artificial and invisible ; 
so far as the Negro minority is concerned, South 
Carolina and Mississippi are one community with 
Virginia and Texas. If Mississippi were a separate 
and independent nation, free from all outside inter- 
ference, its colored people could not be held in their 
present plight for 30 days. Not only the rest of the 


south, but the United States army is back of every 
petty official in Mississippi, if his act be technically 
sanctioned by local law, however otherwise unjust. 
A black majority in an Alabama county is a mere 
local phenomenon, to be weighed against the greater 
white majority of the United States. White people 
of Massachusetts and Minnesota, by their very ex- 
istence as parts of the republic, and especially by 
their silence and apathy, are the potential and the 
actual oppressors of the Negroes of the Mississippi 
deltas. 

The whole people have a political and moral, 
even a physical relation to the status and rights of 
the smallest minority or the humblest citizen. The 
right of equal suffrage among a free citizenship is 
the one fundamental right which should not be 
abandoned to local prejudice and control. If the 
voter is the ultimate source of governmental power, 
the right to vote is primary among rights. If it is 
successfully denied, other rights become illusions. 
The solution of the suffrage problem involves the 
permanent solution of other problems: In every 
100 persons in Georgia there are 54 whites and 46 
blacks. If the Negro there could vote his 46 per- 
cent, he would get better schools by electing some of 
the school administrators; he would get more justice 
by defeating the unjust judges; he would have less 
oppressive laws by electing many of the legislators ; 
he would be seldomer lynched and burned, for in 
the succeeding election he would defeat the unfaith- 
ful or cowardly sheriff. But against the funda- 
mental wrong of racial disfranchisement, philan- 
thropists and humanitarians might spend their money 
to the end of time trying to help the Negro to these 
desirable ends. The most economical help is to 
help one into a position of self-help. Impartial 
suffrage legislation and administration may not 
bring the millenium much nearer to the nation as 
a whole, but it would bring the Negro minority 
much nearer the millenium. 


CONSECRATION 
By Lois AUGUSTA CUGLAR 


My sweet, red blood to snuff the Yellow hate, 

My proud, White flesh a Black girl’s pangs to ease, 
My muscles wrenched a Red-skin’s wrongs to crush, 
My entire body diced to clean the slate, 

Sheer mock-heroics? They'll have love of me: 

The long-enduring, mystical Chinese, 

The colored girls whose goodness makes me blush, 
The kind-faced squaws who peddle basketry. 
They'll have it. Great God, surely it is right? 

He taught it . . . Thy son pleasing in Thy sight— 
No dawdling, half-way measures satisfy— 

I must earn sure approval in Thine eye. 

Failing, I plunge (may nothing me exempt) 

In cauldron—seething, scalding self-contempt. 


UNDERGRADUATE VERSE 


FISK UNIVERSITY 


YOUTH OF TWENTY POEM 


CONTEMPLATES By Richard Jefferson 
SUICIDE 


You went away. 
By T. Thomas Fortune Fletcher A sharp, green star 
Shot through my heart. 
I want you back. 
The green-gold flame 


Life 1s a book 


I have read 


Twenty pages Burns sharp as steel 

The book You do not come 

Is not beautiful Pin pointed sparks of pain 

It bores me. Prick out 

I do not wish The soft flesh 

To read Around my heart 

The rest. And leave a hard 

Life 1s a book And ashen skin 

I have read Unfeeling, cold and passion-spent. 


Twenty pages. I do not want you any more. 


The child that does not cry, 
Dies on its mother’s back. 


—An African Proverb. 


mi 
, Ps 
wilt wi 


| 


Li) 
tee | 


SSS 


A DRAWING, by Charles Cullen 


OUR LITTLE RENAISSANCE 


By ALatn Locks 


OW that the time has come for some 
4) sort of critical appraisal, what of our 
much - heralded Negro Renaissance ? 
Pathetically pale, thinks Mr. Mencken, 
like a candle in the sunlight. It has 
kindled no great art: we would do well to page a 
black Luther and call up the Reformation. Fairly 
successful, considering the fog and soot of the Amer- 
ican atmosphere, and still full of promise—so “it 
seems” to Mr. Heywood Broun. 1 wonder what 
Mr. Pater would say. He might be even more 
sceptical, though with the scepticism of suspended 
judgment, I should think; but one mistake he 
would never make—that of confusing the spirit with 
the vehicle, of confounding the artistic quality which 
Negro life is contributing with the Negro artist. 
Negro artists are just the by-products of the Negro 


Renaissance; its main accomplishment will be to in- 


fuse a new essence into the general stream of cul- 
ture. The Negro Renaissance must be an integral 
phase of contemporary American art and literature; 
more and more we must divorce it in our minds 
from propaganda and politics. Otherwise, why call 
it a renaissance? We are back-sliding, I think, into 
the old swamp of the Negro problem to be discuss- 
ing, as we have been of late, how many Negro ar- 
tists are first-rate or second-rate, and how many feet 
of the book-shelf of leather-bound. classics their 
works to date should occupy. According to that 
Hoyle, the Grand Renaissance should have stopped 
at the Alps and ought to have effected the unifica- 
tion of Italy instead of the revival of Humanism. 


To claim the material that Negro life and idiom ° 


have contributed to American art through the me- 
dium of the white artist may seem at first unfair and 
ungracious; may even be open to the imputation of 
trying to bolster up with reenforcements a “waver- 
ing thin line of talent.” But what is the issue— 
sociology or art—a quality of spirit or complexions? 
The artists in question themselves are gracious 
enough, both in making their acknowledgements to 
the folk spirit, and in asserting the indivisible unity 
of the subject-matter. Only recently, confirming 
her adoption of Negro material as her special field, 
Mrs. Peterkin has said: “I shall never write of 
white people; to me their lives are not so colorful. 
If the South is going to write, what is it they are 
going to write about—the Negro, of course.” Still 
more recently, the distinguished author of Porgy 
applauds shifting the stress from the Negro writer 
to the “Negro race as a subject for art” and ap- 
proves of “lifting the material to the plane of pure 
art” and of making it available to the American 


117 


artist, white or Negro, “as native subject-matter.” 
And if there is any meaning to the term universal 
which we so blithely and tritely use in connection 
with art, it must be this. There is no other alterna- 
tive on the plane of art. Indeed, if conditions in 
the South were more conducive to the development 
of Negro culture without transplanting, the self-ex- 
pression of the “New Negro” would spring up just 
as one branch of the new literature of the South, 
and as one additional phase of its cultural reawaken- 
ing. The common bond of soil and that natural 
provincialism would be a sounder basis for develop- 
ment than the somewhat expatriated position of the 
younger school of Negro writers. And if I were 
asked to name one factor for the anemic and rhetori- 
cal quality of so much Negro expression up to the 
present, I would cite not the unproved capacities of 
our authors but the pathetic exile of the Negro 
writer from his best material, the fact that he cannot 
yet get cultural breathing space on his own soil. 
That is at least one reason for the disabilities of the 
Negro writer in handling his own materials with 
vivid and intimate mastery. 

More and more the younger writers and artists 
are treking back to their root-sources, however. 
Overt propaganda now is as exceptional as it used 
to be typical. The acceptance of race is steadily 
becoming less rhetorical, and more instinctively taken 
for granted. There was a time when the only way 
out of sentimental partisanship was through a stri- 
dently self-conscious realism. That attitude stripped 
the spiritual bloom from the work of the Negro 
writer; gave him a studied and self-conscious detach- 
ment. It was only yesterday that we had to preach 
objectivity to the race artist to cure the pathetic 
fallacies of bathos and didactic approach. We are 
just beginning perhaps to shake off the artifices of 
that relatively early stage; so to speak the Umbrian 
stiffness is still upon us and the Florentine ease and 
urbanity looms just ahead. It is a fiction that the 
black man has until recently been naive: in Ameri- 
can life he has been painfully self-conscious for gen- 
erations—and is only now beginning to recapture the 
naivete he once originally had. The situation is 
well put in a stanza of Mae Cowdery’s poem— 
“Goal,” 

I must shatter the wall 
Of darkness that rises 
From gleaming day 

And seeks to hide the sun. 
I will turn this wall of 
Darkness (that is night) 
Into a thing of beauty. 


118 


I will take from the hearts 
Of black men— 

Prayers their lips 

Are ’fraid to utter, 

And turn their coarseness 
Into a beauty of the jungle 
Whence they came. 


So, in the development of the materials of Negro 
life, each group of artists has a provincialism to out- 
grow; in the one case narrowness of vision, in the 
other, limiting fetters of style. If then it is really 
a renaissance—and I firmly believe it is, we are still 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 


in the hill-town stage, and the mellowness of ma- 
turity has not yet come upon us. It is not to escape 
criticism that we hold it thus; but for the sake of a 
fair comparison. The Negro Renaissance is not ten 
years old; its earliest harbingers cannot be traced 
back of the beginning of the century; its representa- 
tive products to date are not only the work of the 
last three or four years, but the work of men still in 
their twenties so far as the producing artists are 
concerned. Need we then be censured for turning 
our adjective into an affectionate diminutive and for 
choosing, at least for the present, to call it hopefully 
“our little renaissance”? 


MY HEART HAS KNOWN ITS WINTER 


By ARNA BONTEMPS 


A little while spring will claim its own, 
Inall the land around for mile on mile 
Tender grass will hide the rugged stone. 
My still heart will sing a little while. 


And men will never think this wilderness 
‘Was barren once when grass is over all, 
Hearing laughter they may never guess 


My heart has known tts winter and carried gall. 


PREMONITION 


By ARCADEO RODANICHE 
The moon looks like a bleached face 


against the sun 
that moves on 
along the edge of 
which ruins the a 
and as tt hovers 
over the mist of times unborn,— 
staring at tomorrows— 

it pales with dread 

at the sight of the chaos it beholds 
undergoing gestation 

in the womb of time yet to come. 


night 
bysmal lands of yesterdays, 


RACIAL SELF-EXPRESSION 


By E. FRANKLIN FRAZIER 


iP 
< SIONCURRENT with the growing 


group consciousness among the colored 
people there has come into prominence 
two rather widely divergent opinions 
as to the principles which should gov- 
ern the development of the group in America. The 
opinion represented by one group is that colored 
people should undertake to conform in every re- 
spect to the culture about them, while another 
group holds that they should develop their own 
unique culture. Although these two viewpoints 
can not be said to take this apparently mutually 
contradictory form in the minds of all leaders, they 
indicate to a large extent two emerging philosophies 
of racial development which are receiving emphasis 
by their respective protagonists. Moreover, it 
should be added that these two theories have been 
present since the Negro began to assert himself as 
a free man in this country, but have received new 
accentuation by the so-called renaissance of Negro 
artists and thinkers. ‘The debate in the NaTIon 
between Langston Hughes and George Schuyler was 
a skirmish in the clash between these two view- 
points. While the younger Negro artists are gen- 
erally regarded as exponents of the opinion favor- 
ing a unique culture among the colored people, 
there is apparent disagreement among them. 
Countee Cullen’s insistence that he wants to be a 
universal poet rather than a Negro poet is indica- 
tive of this lack of unanimity. 

The issue between these two theoretical stand- 
points should not be confused with the more prac- 
tical but less critical programs of certain Negro 
leaders and Southern whites, based upon the as- 
sumption that innate but not unequal racial en- 
dowments make it necessary that each race develop 
its own separate culture, with the corollary often 
expressed but always implied that intermarriage 
would cause a confusion or neutralization of their 
respective racial endowments. ‘This new apprecia- 
tion of the racial gifts of the Negro is naive and 
seems to be a sublimation of the old admonition to 
the Negro that he should strive to be the “best pos- 
sible Negro and not a poor imitation of the white 
man.” 

While it is improbable that either of these 
theoretic viewpoints will issue into immediate prac- 
tucal consequences, it is well to examine the assump- 
tions upon which they are based. It is likely that 
both philosophies are rationalizations of tendencies 
which are observable in the different developments 
which are taking place in the experience of the col- 


ored group in America. In this essay, the writer 
hopes to contribute to the clarification of the issues 
involved and to evaluate the claims of the respec- 
tive schools of opinion. As a first step in this 
analysis, the writer should say something about the 
relation between race and culture. 


1 


NE of the first results of the general ac- 

ceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis was 
the attempt to explain racial differences in terms 
of the evolutionary process. For example, an at- 
tempt was made to show that contemporary “‘sav- 
ages’ possessed keener sensory powers than civilized 
man and therefore stood in the evolutionary scale 
closer to the lower animals than modern man. The 
comparatively smaller average of brain volume of 
certain races was taken as conclusive evidence of 
the retarded evolution of these races. Likewise the 
assumed mental traits of primitive man were sup- 
posed to bear testimony to his inferior evolutionary 
status. According to Spencer, primitive man 
lacked emotional control and the power of intellec- 
tual concentration. He was explosive and showed 
a marked deficiency in the capacity for abstract 
thought. Moreover, according to the classical 
anthropologists, social evolution followed a_uni- 
linear course; and that among the peoples of simple 
culture today, we had a view of the past evolution 
of modern man. But of greater importance to our 
subject was the assumption that primitive man’s 
simple culture was a reflection of his incomplete or 
arrested physical and mental evolution. 


These a priori assumptions based upon superficial 
observations and favorable data have been totally 
discredited by the critical field studies of modern 
anthropologists. Even the recent claim of Bean to 
having discovered significant anatomical differences 
in the Negro’s brain has been discredited by Mall’s 
subsequent findings. There is a tendency to discard 
even the term ‘primitive’ and substitute ‘preliterate’ 
in referring to peoples possessing simple cultures 
both because of the connotations of the older term 
and because the essential difference between primi- 
tive and modern man seems to be the absence of a 
written tradition among the former. ‘The sensory 
powers of primitive peoples as well as their capacity 
for emotional control and abstract thought do not 
appear to differ essentially from those of civilized 
man. The recent attempt on the part of Levy- 
Bruhl, a French sociologist, to establish chiefly on 
the basis of accounts of travellers and missionaries 
a different order of mentality for preliterate peoples, 


119 


120 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


has met a similar fate at the hands of field work- 
ers, who have shown that preliterate peoples are as 
logical as modern man in the sphere of secular ac- 
tivities of life, There is a rather general agree- 
ment among ethnologists and sociologists that cul- 
tural advance is due to the contact of peoples rather 
than the flowering of the genius of a particular 
racial stock. 

There are, however, some sociologists who, while 
recognizing the inadequacy of the other criteria of 
racial differences, hold to the theory of differences 
in temperamental endowment in races. According 
to this theory, races select different elements of a 
culture when brought into contact with it. The 
writer will postpone comment on this assumption 
until he considers more specifically the issue which 
is the occasion for this essay. 


Neh 


(HE foregoing all too brief summary of the 
Cc 


onclusions regarding the relation between race 
and culture would lead us to believe that there is 
scarcely any warrant for the proposal that the 
Negro develop a unique culture in harmony with 
his racial characteristics. "This opinion receives 
further support even from those authorities who 
hold to differences in the intellectual capacity of 
different races. ‘These authorities hold that the in- 
tellectual powers of the Negroes and whites show 
the same range but that there is a greater frequency 
of those of superior intelligence among the whites. 
If the Negro were not differentiated from the 
whites by color, individuals under our competitive 
social organization would find their places accord- 
ing to their merit and the question of uniqueness 
of culture would never have been raised. The 
issue between the philosophies we are examining 
seems to resolve itself into the old issue of every 
nationalistic group. At first the group attempts to 
lose itself in the majority group, disdaining its own 
characteristics. When this is not possible there is 
a new valuation placed upon these very same char- 
acteristics and they are glorified in the eyes of the 
group. The same tendencies are observable in the 
case of the Negro group. There is, however, a 
conflict between the two tendencies noted above. 
On the one hand there is an attempt to efface 
Negroid characteristics and among the extremists 
of this group to dispense with the appellation, 
Negro; and on the other hand a glorification of 
things black. If the New Negro is turning within 
his group for new values and inspiration for group 
life, he is following the course of other nationalistic 
groups. 

But to turn within the group experience for ma- 
terials for artistic creation and group tradition is 
entirely different from seeking in the biological in- 
heritance of the race for new values, attitudes and 
a different order of mentality. In the philosophy 
of those who stand for a unique culture among the 
Negroes there is generally the latter assumption. 
Moreover, while the group experience of the Ne- 


groes in America may be a fruitful source for the 
materials of art and to some extent a source of 
group tradition, it offers a very restricted source for 
building up a thorough-going group life in America. 
By the entrance of the Negro into America, he was 
practically stripped of his culture. His whole group 
experience in America has been directed towards 
taking over cultural forms about him, In spite of 
the isolation in which he has lived, the Negro has 
succeeded in doing this to a remarkable degree. 
From the beginning he has not been able to draw 
upon a group tradition outside of America. When 
he has been charged with imitation of white models, 
he has been forced to plead guilty because there 
were no others. If the Negro had undertaken to 
shut himself off from the white culture about him 
and had sought light from within his experience, he 
would have remained on the level of barbarism. 
Even at the present time, if the Negro seeks relief 
from his conflict with the white majority by a flight 
from the reality of the culture about him, his devel- 
opment will be arrested and he will be shunted 
from the main highway of American life. In this 
respect the Negro’s position is different from any 
other nationalistic group in America. While they 
can maintain their group life by drawing upon the 
national tradition from the Old World, and par- 
ticipate only to a small degree in the American 
tradition, the Negro has no source to draw on out- 
side of America and only an inadequately assimi- 
lated American tradition from his past in this 
country. 


It is quite possible that those who advocate a 
unique culture among Negroes would agree on the 
whole with the position taken above but would in- 
sist that the main point at issue is the difference 
in temperamental endowment. Therefore, as 
promised above, we shall turn to the consideration 
of this question. It has been pointed out by some 
that the facility with which the evangelical de- 
nominations spread among Negroes as well as the 
spirituals, and the seeming lack of strong economic 
motives, are indications of the peculiar racial tem- 
perament of the Negro. In the latter respect he is 
often contrasted with the Jew. But even here we 
can not say dogmatically that racial temperament 
has been the decisive factor in the emphasis placed 
by the Negroes on certain elements of American 
culture. There are historical and social factors 
which are adequate reasons to account for the fact 
that the majority of Negroes are Baptists and 
Methodists as well as the predilection of the Jew 
for economic activities. In Africa the Negro has 
always been a trader and his markets are an out- 
standing feature of African cultures. Even in 
America we find a remarkable development of busi- 
ness enterprises and this type of activities has be- 
come for many of the younger Negroes the surest 
means for the group to acquire status. 

Mr. James Weldon Johnson has indicated, it 
appears to the writer, in “God’s Trombones” the 
unique contribution of the Negro artists. In this 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 121 


unique work of art he has used the literary 
language of America to give artistic expression to 
the racial experience of the Negro in America. 
Whatever of racial temperament there is in these 
poems has been made articulate through cultural 
forms which were acquired by the artist in America. 
This does not deny that it is possible that the Negro 
artist working on the materials of the Negro’s ex- 
perience in America will create greater works than 
white artists. But we can not overlook the fact 
that at present white writers have surpassed Negro 
writers on the whole in the use of this material. 
While it may be true that at times the Negro has 
attempted to appropriate elements of American cul- 
ture which have justified the rebuke that he was a 
“poor imitation of the white man” it was due to 
the fact that his group experience in America had 
not prepared him for such a role, but not because 
anything in his biological inheritance made the 
appropriation of such cultural traits incongruous. 
As the Negro group becomes more differentiated we 
see developing the same social types that are found 
in the white majority. ‘There is a growing group 
of black Babbitts who are indistinguishable in their 
mental attitudes from the white Babbitts. The 
racial temperament of the Negro will assert itself in 
the cultural traits which he takes over; but such an 
indeterminable factor can not become the norm for 
determining the lines along which the Negro should 
build his culture. But it may be asked if it is de- 
sirable for the Negro to acquire uncritically all the 
traits of American culture. The remainder of this 
essay will be directed to an attempt to give a brief 
answer to this question. 


The very fact that the issue between these two 
philosophies of racial development has been raised 
indicates a sophistication that could never have 
developed in cultural isolation. Negro leaders have 
enjoyed a cosmopolitan experience that enables them 
to view objectively their racial experience, as well 
as American culture and cultural traits in general. 
This appears to be increasingly one of the chief 
functions of the Negro intellectual. His strategic 
position makes him a critic of values for his group. 
But it still remains an open question how far the 
Negro group can escape the adoption of the cultural 
forms of America. One example will suffice to 
show that even in the sphere of economic life some 
selection may be possible the Negro must 
fit into the competitive industrial life about 
him either as a laborer or capitalist; but if the co- 
operative system of production and distribution 
offers superior spiritual values, then as far as prac- 
tical he should develop in his economic life a co- 
operative economic technique. ‘This he should do 
rather than slavishly take over both the form and 
spirit of modern industrialism. If such a course 
finds support in the racial experience of the Negro 
in America or in his temperamental endowment, the 
task will be easier and will be a distinct contribu- 
tion to the general fund of American culture. 
Likewise, if because of racial temperament there is 


a greater disposition on the part of Negroes to 
enjoy life than among the whites and this is recog- 
nized as a superior value, without sacrificing the 
eficiency of the group this trait should not be 
smothered by forcing the Negro’s life into generally 
accepted molds. 


Something should be said about another aspect of 
this question; namely, the building up of a group 
tradition. It seems to the writer that any such 
effort should be encouraged only. so far as it is 
compatible with a fuller participation in American 
culture. In this matter the experience of immi- 
grant groups has a lesson for the Negro. ‘Those 
immigrant groups which have maintained the great- 
est group efficiency have suffered the least amount 
of social mal-adjustment. The efficiency of their 
group organization has been the best means for 
fitting their members for participation in American 
life. One of the primary needs of the Negro in 
America where he is not treated as an individual is 
the development of group efficiency. ‘The work of 
the Association for the Study of Negro Life and 
History under Dr. Carter G. Woodson is very 
rapidly creating a group tradition which is necessary 
for group morale. This is a socializing process 
through which the individual members of a group 
acquire status. ‘This is a healthy sign among. Ne- 
groes and need not be incompatible with their 
struggle for fuller participation in American cul- 
ture so long as it does not increase their isolation. 


FV; 
T HIS discussion has undertaken to evaluate the 


over-simplified assumption expressed and im- 
plied by those who are advocating a unique cultural 
development for the Negro, that our modern cul- 
ture is the expression of certain special intellectual 
and temperamental traits and that the Negro should 
build a culture in harmony with his racial endow- 
ment. It was pointed out that the racial experience 
of the Negro was unique because of historical and 
social factors rather than of biological inheritance. 
Even those traits which are so universally ascribable 
to temperamental rather than intellectual differ- 
ences were shown to have a possible explanation in 
social factors. While for the artist this unique ex- 
perience was recognized as a fertile source, it was 
not deemed adequate for the building up of a thor- 
ough-going racial tradition which would afford 
maximum individual development. On the other 
hand, the utility of a group tradition built even 
upon African material for group efficiency was 
given due recognition. But finally it was shown 
that any nationalistic program that made the Negro 
seek compensations in a barren racial tradition and 
thereby escape competition with the white man 
which was an inevitable accompaniment of full par- 
ticipation in American culture, would lead to in- 
tellectual, spiritual and material impoverishment such 
as one finds among the Southern mountain whites. 


OUR GREATEST GIFT TO AMERICA 


By Georce S. SCHUYLER 


ce N divers occasions some eloquent Ethiop 
1 arises to tell this enlightened nation 
about the marvelous contributions of 
his people to our incomparable civiliza- 

£o\| tion. With glib tongue or trenchant 
, he starts from the arrival of the nineteen un- 


and traces the multiple gifts of the black brethren 
to the present day. He will tell us of the vast 
amount of cotton picked by the Negro, of the hun- 
dreds of roads and levees the black laborers have 
constructed, of the miles of floors Negro women 
have scrubbed and the acres of clothes they have 
washed, of the numerous wars in which, for some 
unknown reason, the Sambo participated, of the 
dances and cookery he invented, or of the spirituals 
and work songs composed by the sons of Ham and 
given to a none too grateful nation. The more 
erudite of these self-appointed spokesmen of the 
race will even go back to the Garden of Eden, the 
walls of Babylon, the pyramids of Egypt and the 
palaces of Ethiopia by way of introduction, and dur- 
ing their prefatory remarks they will not fail, 
often, to claim for the Negro race every person of 
importance that has ever resided on the face of the 
earth. Ending with a forceful and fervent plea for 
justice, equality, righteousness, humanitarianism, 
and other such things conspicuous in the world by 
their absence, they close amid a storm of applause 
from their sable auditors—and watch the collection 
plate. 

This sort of thing has been going on regularly 
for the last century. No Negro meeting is a suc- 
cess without one or more such encouraging ad- 
dresses, and no Negro publication that fails to carry 
one such article in almost every issue is considered 
worthy of purchase. So general has the practice be- 
come that even white audiences and magazines are 
no longer immune. It has become not unusual in 
the past few years for the Tired Society Women’s 
Club of Keokuk, Iowa, or the Delicatessen Proprie- 
tors’ Chamber of Commerce or the Hot Dog Ven- 
dors’ Social Club to have literary afternoons de- 
voted exclusively to the subject of the lowly smoke. 
On such occasions there will be some such notable 
Aframerican speakers as Prof. Hambone of Moronia 
Institute or Dr. Lampblack of the Federal Society 
for the Exploitation of Lynching, who will eloquent- 
ly hold forth for the better part of an hour on the 
blackamoor’s gifts to the Great Republic and why, 
therefore, he should not be kept down. Following 
him there will usually be a soulful rendition by 


the Charcoal Singers of their selected repertoire of 
genuine spirituals, and then, mayhap one of the 
younger Negro poets will recite one of his inspiring 
verses anent a ragged black prostitute gnawing out 
her soul in the dismal shadows of Hog Maw Alley. 

It was not so many years ago that Negro writers 
used to chew their fingernails and tear as much of 
their hair as they could get hold of, because the 
adamantine editors of white magazines and journals 
invariably returned unread their impassioned manu- 
scripts in which they sought to tell how valuable 
the Aframerican had always been to his country 
and what a dirty shame it was to incinerate a spade 
without benefit of jury. Not so today, my friends. 
The swarms of Negro hacks and their more learned 
associates have at last come into their own. They 
have ridden into popular demand on the waves of 
jazz music, the Charleston, Mammy Songs and the 
ubiquitous, if intricate, Black Bottom. Pick up al- 
most any of the better class periodicals of national 
note nowadays and you are almost sure to find a 
lengthy paper by some sable literatus on the Negro’s 
gifts to America, on his amazing progress in becom- 
ing just like other Americans in habit and thought, 
or on the horrible injustice of jim crow cars. ‘The 
cracker editors are paying generously for the stuff 
(which is more than the Negro editors did in the 
old days), and as a result, the black scribblers, along 
with the race orators, are now wallowing in the 
luxury of four-room apartments, expensive radios, 
Chickering pianos, Bond Street habiliments, canvas- 
back duck, pre-war Scotch and high yallow mis- 
tresses. 

All of which is very well and good. It is only 
natural that the peckerwoods, having become bored 
to death with their uninteresting lives, should turn 
to the crows for inspiration and entertainment. It 
is probably part of their widespread rationalization 
of the urge they possess to mix with the virile blacks. 
One marvels, however, that the principal contribu- 
tion of the zigaboos to the nation has been entirely 
overlooked by our dusky literati and peripatetic plat- 
form prancers. None of them, apparently, has ever 
thought of it. While they have been ransacking 
their brains and the shelves of the public libraries 
for new Negro gifts of which to inform their eager 
listeners at so much per word or per engagement, 
they have ignored the principal gift sprawling every- 
where about them. They had but to lift their eyes 
from the pages of their musty tomes and glance 
around. But they didn’t. 

“And what,” I can hear these propagandists fe- 
verishly inquiring with poised fountain pens and 
notebooks, “is this unchronicled contribution to the 


122 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 123 


worth of our nation?” Well, I am not unwilling 
to divulge this “secret” that has been all too ap- 
parent to the observing. And though the brownskin 
intelligentsia are now able to pay for the informa- 
tion—and probably willing to do so—I modestly 
ask nothing, save perhaps a quart of decent rye or 
possibly one of the numerous medals shoveled out 
each year to deserving coons. Hence, like all of the 
others, I now arise, fleck a speck off my dinner 
jacket, adjust my horn-rimmed nose glasses, and, 
striking an attitude, declaim the magic word: Flat- 
tery! 

Yes folks, the greatest gift we have made to 
America is flattery. Flattery, if you please, of the 
buckra majority; inflation of the racial ego of the 
dominant group by our mere proximity, by our ac- 
tions and by our aspirations. “How Come?” I am 
belligerently and skeptically quizzed, and very in- 
dulgently I elucidate. Imitation, some one has said, 
is the sincerest flattery. It is quite human to be 
pleased and feel very important when we are aped 
and imitated. Consider how we Negroes shove out 
our chests when an article appears in an enterprising 
darkey newspaper from the pen of some prominent 
African chief saying that his dingy colleagues on 
the Dark Continent look to their American breth- 
ren, with their amazing progress, for inspiration? 
How sweet is flattery, the mother of pride. And 
pride, we have been told, is absolutely essential to 
progress and achievement. If all of this be true of 
the dark American, mow much truer must it be of 
the pink American? By constant exposure to his 
energetic propagandists in press, on platform and 
in pulpit, the colored brother has forged ahead—to 
borrow an expression from the Uplift—auntil he 
can now eat with Rogers silver off Haviland china, 
sprawl on overstuffed couches and read spicy litera- 
ture under the glow of ornate floor lamps, while 
the strains of “Beer Bucket Blues” are wafted over 
the radio. ‘This is generally known as progress. 
Now if the downtrodden Negro, under the influ- 
ence of his flattering propagandists, has been able 
to attain such heights of material well being, is it 
any wonder that the noble rednecks have leaped so 
much farther up the scale of living when sur- 
rounded by millions of black flatterers, both mute 
and vocal? Most certainly not. 

Look, for example, at Isadore Shankersoff. By 
hook or by crook (probably the latter) he grabbed 
off enough coin of his native land to pay his pas- 
sage to America. In Russia he was a nobody— 
hoofed by everybody—the mudsill of society. Quite 
naturally his inferiority complex was Brobdingnag- 
ian. Arriving under the shadow of the Statue of 
Liberty, he is still Isadore Shankersoff, the prey of 
sharpers and cheap grafters, but now he has moved 
considerably higher in the social scale. ‘Though 
remaining mentally adolescent, he is no longer at 
the bottom: he is a white man! Over night he 
has become a member of the superior race. Ellis 
Island marked his metamorphosis. For the first 
time in his life he is better than somebody. With- 


out the presence of the blackamoor in these won- 
derfully United States, he would still know him- 
self for the thick-pated underling that he is, but 
how can he go on believing that when America is 
screaming to him on every hand that he is a white 
man, and as such entitled to certain rights and 
privileges forbidden to Negro scientists, artists, 
clergymen, journalists and merchants. One can 
understand why Isadore walks with firmer tread. 

Or glance at Cyrus Leviticus Dumbbell. He is 
of Anglo-Saxon stock that is so old that it has 
very largely gone to seed. In the fastnesses of the 
Blue Ridge Mountains his racial strain has been 
safely preserved from pollution by black and red 
men, for over two hundred years. Thus he is a 
stalwart fellow untouched by thrift or education. 
Cy finally tires of the bushes and descends to one 
of the nearby towns. There he finds employment 
in a mill on a twelve-hour shift. The company 
paternalistically furnishes him everything he needs 
and thoughtfully deducts the cost regularly from 
his slender pay envelope, leaving him about two 
dollars for corn liquor and moving pictures. Cy 
has never had cause to think himself of any par- 
ticular importance-in the scheme of things, but his 
fellow workers tell him differently. He is a white 
man, they say, and therefore divinely appointed to 
“keep the nigger down.” He must, they insist, 
protect white womanhood and preserve white su- 
premacy. ‘This country, he learns, is a white man’s 
country, and although he owns none of it, the in- 
formation strikes him not unpleasantly. Shortly 
he scrapes together ten dollars, buys Klan regalia, 
and is soon engaged in attending midnight meet- 
ings, burning crosses, repeating ritual from the 
Kloran, flogging erring white womanhood for the 
greater purity of Anglo-Saxondom, and keeping 
vigilantly on the lookout for uppish and offensive 
zigaboos to lynch. Like the ancient Greeks and 
Romans, he now believes himself superior to every- 
body different from him. Nor does the presence 
of jim crow institutions on every hand contribute 
anything toward lessening that belief. Whatever 
his troubles may be, he has learned from his col- 
leagues and ‘the politicians, to blame it all on the 
dark folks, who are, he is now positive, without 
exception his inferiors. 

Think, also, of demure little Dorothy Dunce. 
For twelve years she attended the palatial public 
school. Now, at eighteen, having graduated, she 
is about to apply her Latin, Greek, English Litera- 
ture, Ancient History, Geometry and Botany to 
her everyday work as packer in a spaghetti factory. 
When she was very young, before she entered the 
kindergarten, her indulgent parents used to scare 
her by issuing a solemn warning that a big, black 
nigger would kidnap her if she wasn’t a good little 
girl. Now that she has had American popular 
education turned loose upon her, she naturally be- 
lieves differently: i. e., that every big, burly, black 
nigger she meets on a dark street is ready to re- 
lieve her by force of what remains of her virtue. 


124 ; EBONY AND? TO PAZ 


A value is placed upon her that she would not have 
in Roumania, Scotland, Denmark or Montenegro. 
She is now a member of that exalted aggregation 
known as pure, white womanhood. She is also 
confident of her general superiority because educa- 
tion has taught her that Negroes are inferior, im- 
moral, diseased, lazy, unprogressive, ugly, odorifer- 
ous, and should be firmly kept in their place at the 
bottom of the social and industrial scale. Quite 
naturally she swells with race pride, for no matter 
how low she falls, she will always be a white 
woman. 

But enough of such examples. It is fairly well 
established, I think, that our presence in the Great 
Republic has been of incalculable psychological 
value to the masses of white citizens. Descendents 
of convicts, serfs and half-wits, with the rest have 
been buoyed up and greatly exalted by being con- 
stantly assured of their superiority to all other races 
and their equality with each other. On the stages 
of a thousand music halls, they have had _ their 
vanity tickled by blackface performers parading the 
idiocies of mythical black roustabouts and rustics. 
Between belly-cracking guffaws they have secretly 
congratulated themselves on the fact that they are 
not like these buffoons. “Their books and maga- 
zines have told them, or insinuated, that morality, 
beauty, refinement and culture are restricted to 
Caucasians. On every hand they have seen smokes 
endeavoring to change from black to white, and 
from kinky hair to straight, by means of deleterious 
chemicals, and constantly they hear the Negroes 
urging each other to do this and that “like white 
folks.” Nor do the crackers fail to observe, either, 
that pink epidermis is as highly treasured among 
blacks as in Nordic America, and that the most 
devastating charge that one Negro can make 
against another is that “‘he acts just like a nigger.” 
Anything excellent they hear labeled by the race 


conscious Negroes as “like white folks,” nor is it 
unusual for them, while loitering in the Negro 
ghetto, to hear black women compared to Fords, 
mulatto women to Cadillacs and white women to 
Packards. With so much flattery it is no wonder 
that the Caucasians have a very high opinion of 
themselves and attempt to live up to the lofty niche 
in which the Negroes have placed them. We should 
not marvel that every white elevator operator, 
school teacher and bricklayer identifies himself with 
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Newton, 
Edison, Wagner, Tennyson ‘and Rembrandt as 
creators of this great civilization. As a result we 
have our American society, where everybody who 
sports a pink color believes himself to be the equal 
of all other whites by virtue of his lack of skin 
pigmentation, and his classic Caucasian features. 

It is not surprising, then, that democracy has 
worked better in this country than elsewhere. “This 
belief in the equality of all white folks—making 
skin color the gauge of worth and the measure of 
citizenship rights—has caused: the lowest to strive 
to become among the highest. Because of this 
great ferment, America has become the Utopia of 
the material world; the land of hope and oppor- 
tunity. Without the transplanted African in their 
midst to bolster up the illusion, American would 
have unquestionably been a much different place; 
but instead the shine has served as a mudsill upon 
which all white people alike can stand and reach 
toward the stars. I submit that here is the gift par 
excellence of the Negro to America. ‘To spur ten 
times our number on to great heights of achieve- 
ment; to spare the nation the enervating presence of 
a destructive social caste system, such as exists else- 
where, by substituting a color caste system that 
roused the hope and- pride of teeming millions of 
ofays—this indeed is a gift of which we can well 
be proud. 


IGG 


EFFIGY 


By LEWIs ALEXANDER 


FORM 


You stood in the yard 
Like a lilac bush 

With your head tossed high 
As if to push 

Your hair in a blossom 
About your head 

You wore the grace 


Of a fragile reed. 


FASHION 


Your gown crackled loud 

Like the swish of leaves 

Being flitted about 

By a lyric breeze 

Your step was like a dainty fawn 
Breathing the nectared air at dawn, 

Oft have I seen the rose in you 

But it never bloomed such a brilliant hue. 


THE NEGRO ACTOR’S DEFICIT 


By Tueopuitus Lewis 


HE actor makes the theatre. He cre- 
ates the theatre by distinguishing him- 
self from a crowd of worshippers or 
revellers by his special talent for mim- 
icry or simulation. His ability to give 
clever and convincing imitations of familiar persons 
and situations and well known objects of nature 
excites widespread curiosity. By improving his 
talent he crystalizes transient curiosity into con- 
tinued interest and makes the theatre a permanent 
institution of public amusement. 

The theatre has now become an independent in- 
stitution. Formerly it was an appendage of the 
church. Its performances were a part of religious 
ritual, religious propaganda or religious orgy. Now 
its performances attract a definite social interest 
on their own merits—an interest, separate and dis- 
tinct from all other interests, which no other insti- 
tution can satisfy. People no longer go to see the 


actor simulate the story of the Passion. They go. 


to see him jig a lively step or enact a contemporary 
and perhaps humorous version of the story of Pot- 
iphar’s wife. .The actor, who began as a subordin- 
ate of the priest, has achieved his autonomy and 
decides for himself whether he shall devote his tal- 
ent to making people good or to making them 
happy. 

He usually decides to make them happy. As 
the servant of the church the actor devoted his 
skill to making his audience reverent. As the mas- 
ter of the theatre he specializes in making his audi- 
ence merry. He eliminates the elements of cere- 
monial and worship and restricts the theatre solely 
to amusement. But the relationship between the 
church and the theatre has not been completely 
severed. Neither the church, dominated by the 
priest, nor the theatre, controlled by the actor, offers 
its patrons any material boon. - Each is strictly a 
spiritual institution. The church endures because 
it satisfies men’s deepest emotional cravings; the 
theatre, in its immature state, thrives because it 
caresses their lighter emotions. 

I have not, of course, attempted to trace the 


literal steps by which the acolyte becomes the actor - 


and the mystery tableau or the revel evolves into 
the theatre. I am seeking, merely, to isolate the 
origin and the nature of the theatre as a means of 
leading up to the final responsibility and test of 
the actor. The theatre, when it has once been 
established as an autonomous institution, can be 
imported from one country to another. America, 
for example, borrowed its theatre along with other 
fundamentals of culture from Europe. We 
Aframericans borrowed our theatre from our white 


compatriots. But transferring the theatre from one 
continent or culture to another continent or culture 
does not change its essential nature any more than 
importing English sparrows from abroad made them 
Baltimore orioles. 

The theatre is a spiritual institution in America 
and Australia as well as in Greece and England. 
It obtained its original license from the church and 
it has a similar spiritual function to perform. The 
actor’ began as a subordinate of an institution de- 
signed to exalt men. When the theatre became 
independent he found himself head of an institution 
devoted merely to entertaining them. This, in a 
sense, is cultural degradation. If the actor permits 
the stage to remain at this level he is a social factor 
of negligible significance, except, perhaps, to the 
police. If, on the other hand, the actor advances 


‘the theatre to a point wheré it exalts as well as en- 


tertains, where it both colors and reflects social con- 
duct, he becomes a cultural agent coordinate with 
the priest and one of the most precious members 
of society. 

I can now consider what Negro actors have done 
with their theatre, or, if you prefer, what they 
have accomplished in the theatre. The test will be 
empirical. I will not compare the accomplishments 
of Negro actors with an ideal or a theory. I will 
compare their accomplishments with what actors 
of other peoples have accomplished, making due al- 
lowance for whatever extenuating circumstances ex- 
ist in favor of Negro actors if they have failed to 
make the grade. 

The theatre, excepting the church and sports, is 
the most democratic of spiritual institutions. Since 
sports are hardly influenced by art at all while the 
church employs art merely as a handmaiden the 
theatre is really the most democratic of all artistic 
institutions. It evolved out of a crowd and its en- 
tertainment has always been adapted to mass rather 
than to individual enjoyment. More than any 
other esthetic institution it reflects the spiritual life 
of a whole people. This is not to say the theatre 
appeals to every individual of a group. It means 
that the theatre, if it is in a healthy state, will at- 
tract representative individuals from every class of 
society from the lowest to the highest. If it draws 
its patrons from any one class, either the lowest 
or the highest, to the exclusion of other levels of 
society, it will become either spiritually anaemic 
or spiritually crapulous, hence unable to keep pace 
with the cultural progress of the group. 

It seems like a waste of words to describe the 
audience of the Negro theatre for the reader is 
doubtless familiar with it already. It is well known 


125 


126 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


that the Negro theatre appeals only to the lowest 
elements of the race. Not the lowest class eco- 
nomically, but the lowest intellectually and morally 
—the ignorant and depraved. The poorer respecta- 
ble classes either avoid it or attend its performances 
with shamefaced apologies. The middle and upper 
classes hold it in contempt and the more intelligent 
actors themselves are disgusted with it. ‘There is 
no better way to describe the attitude of respectable 
Negroes toward their theatre than to point to their 
‘ndifference to its frequent indecency. Unlike the 
white public, which is often alarmed by the moral 
tone of its theatre, the colored respectable classes 
seldom protest against the tendency of their stage 
toward turpitude. As they never attend its per- 
formances its indecency does not offend them and 
they do not care whether it continues or not. 

The cause of the indifference of the better classes 
is obvious and the cause of the interest of the lewd 
element is equally so. The general tone of the 
Negro stage has never risen above the level of the 
burlesque show. Its performances consist of a con- 
tinuous display of imbecile and obscene humor. An 
actor with a deformed mouth will sing a song and 
vibrate his lips. An elongated comedian with legs 
like broomsticks will sing a song and proceed to 
make letter Z’s and figure 4’s with his limbs. When 
an actor has no physical deformity to capitalize he 
will make up for the deficiency by arraying himself 
in a suit of trick clothes. A derby three inches in 
diameter will perch perilously atop his poll, a ten- 
inch safety pin will hold his coat together, thirty- 
inch shoes will encase his feet and a red flannel 
patch will adorn the seat of his black breeches. 
Add to this a patter which depends on the mispro- 
nunciation of words for its humor and some by- 
play of ribald sex jokes and you have the entire 
gamut of amusement offered by the Negro stage. 
What it was thirty years ago it is today. Amuse- 
ment of this sort, once the novelty has worn off, 
can divert only the dull and depraved. The pro- 
gressive classes are revolted by it. 

Fully eight out of ten colored actors will admit 
the deplorable condition of the Negro stage, only 
they will demur responsibility for it and place the 
blame on the public. They argue that if respecta- 
ble colored people would patronize the theatre they 
(the actors) could raise the standard of amusement. 
but since only members of the lower element fill 
the auditorium they must play down to the level 
of their audience. This sounds plausible enough 
but it is nevertheless highly specious. The public 
has no business in the theatre except to be enter- 
tained and occasionally exalted. The rest is up to 
the dramatist, whose part we will not consider for 
the present, and the actor. 

The actor is an artist, or he ought to be, and 
he must assume the same responsibility to the pub- 
lic every other artist assumes. A man goes to the 
theatre to see his spiritual likeness just as he goes to 
a portrait artist to have his physical likeness de- 
picted, There is a little bit of Henry V in every 


Englishman, a mite of Cyrano de Bergerac in every 
Frenchman and a bit of Toussant l’Ouverture or 
Booker Washington in every Aframerican. ‘The 
Englishman, the Frenchman and the Aframerican 
each wants to see the stage reflect his inner heroism, 
nobility and wit. No one wants to see the actor de- 
pict him as a gorilla no more than he wants to see 
a portrait artist paint his picture with the snout 
of a boar or the ears of an ass. It is not his busi- 
ness to tell the painter what brushes or pigments 
to use. Neither is it his concern what methods the 
actor employs. He has fulfilled both his duty and 
his right when he expresses approval or disapproval 
of the finished work. 

The artist, whether he is actor, painter or poet, 
is a spiritual pioneer. Gainborough did not ask 
the citizens of London how he should paint the 
Blue Boy, Keats did not canvas the town on how 
to write the Ode to a Nightingale nor did the Pari- 
sians specify how Coquelin should portray the role 
of Cyrano. Each of those artists divined the spir- 
itual needs of the time and proceeded to satisfy 
those needs. He did not say people have never 
seen a picture, poem or acting like I have in mind 
so I must not produce it till they let me know they 
are ready to appreciate it. Still that is precisely 
what the Negro actor says in substance when he 
complains that the absence of the better classes from 
the theatre prevents him from raising the standard 
of entertainment. 

If the Negro actor was the artist he should be, 
he would not complain of being dominated by his 
audience. Instead he would master his audience 
and make it like a progressively higher form of 
amusement... It goes without saying that no actor, 
whatever his genius, can make a How Come? audi- 
ence like the Master Builder. On the other hand 
it is hard to conceive how an actor can be so bad 
as to make any audience dislike Cyrano de Bergerac. 
It can be logically objected that heroic plays like 
the latter are few and far between, It can be just 
as logically replied that melodramas are easy to 
obtain and that they would uplift the present audi- 
ence of the Negro theatre and at the same time at- 
tract patrons from higher levels of the race. The 
fact that Negro actors have not brought their stage 
to this transition period from a lower to a higher 
form of amusement simply means they lack imagina- 
tion and energy. It is easier to wear the same old 
trick clothes and spiel off the same old patter 
than it is to learn the lines of a play, so our actors 
follow the line of no resistance and keep doing 
the same old stuff. It is not true that they are com- 
pelled to play down to their audience. They are 
playing up to the limit of their own ability. The 
only thing that distinguishes the flashily dressed 
hoodlum in the box seat from the actor on the stage 
is that the former eats more and drinks less. 

Like most shoddy characters the Negro actor, 
as a rule, is wholly lacking in race pride. This is 
not surprising, for pride of race is akin to pride in 
self, and incompetence and lack of patriotism com- 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 127 


monly go together. The genuine artist is always 
a patriot at bottom. He may incessantly bawl his 
countrymen out to the dogs but in his heart he 
cherishes an intense affection for them. Some first 
-rate artists like Paderewski even do not disdain to 
assume political office. 

The artist imbued with a sense of race pride and 
responsibility, like Ethel Waters or the late Bob 
Cole and Florence Mills, is a rare bird in the 
ranks of Negro performers. Instead of doing their 
best to make the Negro theatre a house of loveliness 
for the diversion of Negro audiences most colored 
actors are forever trying their hardest to get out of 
it altogether, using it only as a stepping stone to 
popularity with white producers. Broadway or Big 
Time vaudeville is the goal of every colored per- 
former. Not all of them reach their goal, of course. 
but it is always present in their dreams; and they 
do not feel that they have made a success until they 
have heard the applause of Caucasian palms. 

The Negro stage is so much a thing apart from 
the interests of the race at large that it is hardly prob- 
able that any colored apologists for it will be found 
outside the ranks of professional actors. “There may 
be some, however, and they may argue that the col- 
ored actor cannot have made such a dismal failure 
of his theatre, for white people frequently attend 
its performances and enjoy them. ‘These white 
visitors, it may be pointed out, are often members 
of the cultured classes and quite familiar with the 
best their own stage affords. The answer is plain. 
These white visitors have not seen the same actors 
doing the same thing year after year for two de- 
cades. Hence they mistake what is novel to them 
for originality on the part of the actor just as 
they are likely to mistake his obscenity for sophisti- 
cation. Even so, they do not compare the Negro 
stage with their own, for they think of the latter in 
terms of drama while they think of the Negro stage 
in terms of vaudeville. 


Drama and vaudeville. The comparison epito- 
mizes the Negro actor’s deficit. We think of the 
French theatre in terms of its Talmas, Coquelins, 
Bernhardts and Guitrys. We think of the English 
theatre in terms of its Burbages, Irvings, Garricks, 
Siddonses, Bracegirdles and Ellen Terrys. We 
think of the American theatre in terms of its For- 
ests, Hacketts, Fiskes and Barrymores. We think 
of the Negro theatre in terms of Johnny Hudgins, 
Billy Mills, Hamtree Harrington and Miller and 
Lyles. But what about our Cloughs, Pryors, Des- 
monds and Bishops? Simply this. If the whole 
kit and caboodle of them were worth the grave 
dust of Joseph Jefferson they wouldn’t have to hang 
around Broadway stage doors crying for dramatic 
handouts at $35 a week top. 


The cultural value of the actor, I said in the 
beginning of this article, must be judged by his 
ability to raise the theatre above the plane of amuse- 
ment and make it an instrument for the expression 
of the higher spiritual life of his people. ‘The thea- 
tre should be a dynamic institution that both reflects 
and colors the general pattern of life of which it 
is a part. The Negro actor has not only failed to 
make the stage a vital part of our cultural life; he 
has degraded it below the notice of the better classes 
of the race. Our stage does not influence our cul- 
ture even to the extent of providing matinee idols 
for romantic schoolgirls. Instead it panders exclu- 
sively lasciviousness of the feeble minded and de- 
praved elements of the race. Worse. The majority 
of our actors are ignorant of both the nature and 
the history of the theatre and have only the vaguest 
suspicion why the respectable classes ignore their ex- 
istence. "The few performers intelligent enough to 
sense what is wrong with our theatre lack sufficient 
energy to make even a gesture of reform. In his 
account with his race the balance of the Negro actor 
remains heavily in the red. 


TWO POEMS 


By EDWARD 8S. SILVERA 


« 


THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 


“Behold our son, our valiant dead,” 
They say to one another— 

And all the while 

None ever thinks 

That he might be my brother: 

But I am glad he holds his peace, 
I’m glad he can’t come back; 

I'd hate to see Love crucified 

If he, by chance, were black. 


OLD MAID 


The fires of a thousand loves 
Burned bright within her 
Night and day, 
The years like bellows 

- Fanned the flames 


Which ate her heart and soul away. 


DUNCANSON 


(An American Artist Whose Color Was Forgot) 
W. P. Dabney 


TRANGE to say, the world, or 
rather our world, knows little 
of R. §. Duncanson, a native of Cin- 
cinnati, Ohio, who years before the 
Civil War had established a reputa- 
tion as an artist of high rank. The 
ignorance arises from the fact that 
in this country, his associates were 
artists and his color was rarely men- 
tioned. 

Though self-taught, his pictures 
early attracted attention. The Art 
records of England mention and de- 
scribe some of the paintings he ex- 
hibited when making a tour of Eu- 
rope. His associates even in his home 
town were men of international rep- 
utation, among them Farny, Lind- 
say, S. Jerome, Uhl, and Henry Mos- 
ler, who afterwards located in New 
York. Among his paintings, now in 
Cincinnati, are a full size portrait 
of William Cary which hangs at the 
Ohio Miblitary Institute, and a life 
size picture at Ohio Mechanics’ In- 
stitute of Nicholas Longworth, I. 
There are several other pictures in 
existence, among which are magnifi- 
cent landscapes. 

One of the finest, The Western 
Hunters’ Encampment, was pur- 
chased by me from a connoisseur of 
the fine arts who had treasured it 
for years. It hangs on the wall of 
my library and there, mellowed by 
the light that falls upon it from 
above, its marvelous lineal precision, 
its magnificent coloring accentuated 
by age, reveal a touch that ever 
characterizes the work of the mas- 
ters. 

The following brief extract is taken from the En- 
quirer of December’21, 1924:— 

“Tn 1857, Cincinnati was a large art center, the 
most prominent west of the Alleghenies. Already 
the city was known for the fame of Hiram Powers, 
a sculptor, and a score of painters headed by James 
H. Beard, Thomas Buchanan Read and Robert S. 
Duncanson, the phenomenal colored man, whose 
father was a Scotchman of Canada, and whose 
mother was a mulatto. 

“Seventy-five years ago, according to Charles 
Cist’s ‘Cincinnati in 1851,’ Cincinnati had numerous 


128 


artists who had already become, or were about to 
become, distinguished for work. One of these was 
the colored man, Robert S. Duncanson, who was 
then already prominent for such historical pieces as 
‘Shylock and Jessica,’ ‘Ruins of Carthage,’ “Trial of 
Shakespeare,’ ‘Battle Ground of the River Raisin’ 
and ‘Western Hunters’ Encampment.’ 

“Tn 1865, November 24, there appeared in the 
Cincinnati Daily Gazette the following item from 
Moncure D. Conway of Cincinnati, who wrote from 
London, England, telling of the advance of Robert 
S. Duncanson: 


EBONY AND :TOPAZ ; 129 


“In walking through the gallery of miniatures, at 
the South Kensington Museum the other day I met 
Duncanson, whom some of your readers will remem- 
ber as one who, a few years ago, was trying to make 
himself an artist in Cincinnati, and who had already 
produced a worthy piece of imaginative art in a 
picture of Tennyson’s ‘Lotus Eaters.’ 

“Duncanson subsequently left Ohio and repaired 
to Canada, where his color did not prevent his asso- 
ciation with other artists and his entrance into good 
society. He gained much of his culture and encour- 
agement in Canada, retouched his ‘Lotus Eaters,’ 
produced one or two still better paintings and set 
out for England. In Glasgow and other Scotch 
cities he exhibited these paintings with success.” 

“He has been invited to come to London by vari- 
ous aristocratic personages. Among others, by the 
Duchess of Sutherland and the Duchess of Essex, 
who will be his patrons. He also received a letter 
from the poet laureate, Tennyson, inviting him to 
visit him at his home, in the Isle of Wight, where 
he will go and take with him the ‘Lotus Eaters.’ 
Think of a Negro sitting at the table with Mr. and 
Mrs. Alfred Tennyson, Lord and Lady of the 
Manor, and Mirror of Aristocracy—and so forth! 

(Signed) “Aubrey” Moncure D. Conway. 

“In 1866 there appeared in ‘The Art Journal,’ of 

London, England, the following tribute to American 


Art. It was headed, ‘The Land of the Lotus Eaters, 
Painted by R. §. Duncanson.’ 

““America has long maintained supremacy in 
landscape art, perhaps indeed its landscape artists 
surpass those of England. Certainly we have no 
painter who can equal the works of Church; and 
modern British School. Duncanson has established 
high fame in the United States and in Canada. He 
is a native of the States and received his art educa- 
tion there, but it has been “finished” by a course of 
study in Italy, by earnest thoughts at the feet of 
the great masters and by a continual contemplation 
of nature under Southern skies. 

“We therefore may add this picture to the many 
works of rare value supplied to us by the landscape 
artists of America. 

“Many wonderful tributes have been paid to this 
man, so worthy, yet so little known among us. A 
genius of ‘purest ray serene,’ ‘Dunc,’ as his contem- 
poraries called him, was temperamental to the ex- 
treme. He worshipped his art, idolized the children 
of his brain and brush. While painting, he would 
often sing, laugh or even weep, for his soul was in 
Paradise. 

“The time came when the fervor of his emotions, 
shook asunder the ties of sanity, and then, ‘God 
gathered him to his Fathers.’ ” 


YOUTH 
By FRANK HORNE 


IT ama knotted nebula— 


awhirling flame 


Shrieking aftire the endless darkness... 
I am the eternal center of gravity 

and about me swing the crazy moons— 
I am the thunder of rising suns, 


the blaze of the zenith— 


... the tremble of women’s bodies 
in the arms of lovers... 

I sit on top of the Pole 

Drunk with starry splendor 
Shouting hozzanas at the Pleiades 
... booting footballs at the moon— 
I shall outlast the sun 


and the moon 


and the stars. . 


The Prospects Of Black Bourgeoisie 


By Apram L. Harris 


HE slave regime furnished the basis for 
the racial distinctions which it pro- 
jected and crystallized into a social psy- 
w#Aj| Chology which in turn became the senti- 

mental bulwark of the slave power and 
its legacy upon dissolution. In order to hold the 
system intact, the exploitation of black labor was 
justified on ground that the Negro was inherently 
unfitted for independent participation in western 
culture. Even to the poor white worker whose status 
was only theoretically superior to that of the slave, 
the Negro was accursed of God, and “‘to labor was 
to work like a nigger.” On the other hand, the 
social superiority of the master class exerted a subtle 
influence on the Negro slave. Conscious of his own 
social and economic debasement and contemptuous 
of the poor white man’s economic infirmity, he de- 
sired to be like the old masters. The complexity 
of these attitudes made it impossible for the lower 
white and black classes to divest themselves of mu- 
tual animosity. 


ad 


When freedom came, the Negro, who, in culture 
and refinement, more nearly approximated the white 
man, comprised a sort of natural aristocracy which 
furnished the race with leaders. Under the slave 
regime these leaders had been the house servants and 
artisans. ‘Their proximity to the dominant class of 
whites and, sometimes, blood relationship predis- 
posed them to an affectation of aristocratic graces, 
traditions, and manners. But their social philoso- 
phy was of northern origin. 


This early Negro leadership was mainly political 
in its purpose and outlook. While the more astute 
Negro politicians may have perceived some of the 
economic factors in the race problem, only ephemer- 
al contact was established with the labor movement 
of the 60’s and 70’s when competition provoked cer- 
tain white unions to take the initiative in organizing 
Negro workers. Of course, many of the unions, 
like the typographical that was malicious in its dis- 
criminations against Negro printers, intensified the 
Negro worker’s skepticism of white labor, particu- 
larly when organized. But the chief element that 
perpetuated discord and profited by it was the Ne- 
gro politicians who were Negro labor’s spokesmen 
during this period. These politicians were aligned 
with the Republican Party. When the white work- 
ers projected an independent labor party, the Negro 
Republicans naturally exclaimed that their party 
was the fountain of all social reform. The masses 
of Negro laborers believed in the political faith of 
their leaders; and their social experience could not 


lead to any appreciation of labor legislation such as 
was proposed by their white contemporaries. Not 
that the Negro worker disapproved class legislation. 
The fact was that he did not approve class legisla- 


_tion when it was designed to ameliorate specific 


racial handicaps. 


On the economic side, the chief undertaking di- 
rectly after emancipation was the incorporation of 
the Freedmen’s Savings Bank by the Federal Gov- 
ernment. ‘This too was tainted with Republican 
politics. It was not conceived by Negroes as a step 
in the race’s economic elevation. It was organized 
for Negroes by their political guardians. Although 
the Bank was a hot-bed of corruption and exploita- 
tion, it served to bring the Negro closer to the 
habits of thought that prevailed in the capitalistic 
economy. Along with this indoctrination in the 
cultus of savings and private enterprise went habitu- 
ation to the ideology of the middle-classes. 


In later years the racial philosophy which ex- 
pounded industrial efficiency to the Negro masses 
became the embodiment of economic individualism 
and business enterprise, but eschewed political alli- 
ances—even with the political power that symbol- 
ized these virtues. More paradoxical than this was 
the fact that business enterprise as a philosophy of 
racial advancement was made synonymous with the 
industrial education of the Negro, since they both 
claimed to be the means of Negro economic emanci- 
pation. 


II 


As social ostracism increased, and the Negro’s in- 
dustrial education—such as it was—counted for 
little in the competitive economy, the philosophy of 
business enterprise succeeded in establishing its con- 
ceptual independence of the old dualism in economic 
thinking of Negro leaders. It became the means of 
promoting Negro independence of existing economic 
arrangements; and now, in our contemporary cul- 
ture, it bids fair to pre-empt the field of racial bet- 
terment philosophies. The practical validity of 
Negro business enterprise is claimed to be attested 
by the surpluses of wealth individual Negroes have 
accumulated. The adherents to the doctrine do not 
advocate increasing the number of really middle- 
class Negroes through an increase of independent 
Negro farmers, even though sound business enter- 
prise must rest as much upon such a class as upon 
industrial and fiscal fact. In the surrounding white 
population, business enterprise rests upon a fairly 
even distribution of functional classes, cultivation of 
natural resources and ownership of complex indus- 


131 


132 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


trial arrenzements. In the Negro population func- 
tional classes are most unevenly distributed; and, 
of course, the Negro has little industrial control 
and possesses a small share of the nation’s natural 
resources. The Negro middle-class is comprised of 
small shop keepers, a small group of independent 
farmers, and persons engaged in rendering profes- 
sional and personal service. Here of late a decided 
growth in inductrial wage-earners has increased the 
number of skilled craftsmen in the Negro popula- 
tion while decreasing its agricultural proletariat. At 
the bottem of the social ladder are to be found the 
unskilled laborers, domestic servants, and agricul- 
tural wage-earners who constitute by far the largest 
functional groups. The professions are already 
overcrowded. The desire to escape the lot of the 
domestic and the poverty of the unskilled laborer 
accounts for the disproportionate share of Negroes 
that has been attracted to the healing, teaching, and 
exhorting professions. Relief from this top-heavi- 
ness among Negro functional classes is promised by 
those who undertake business enterprise as the plan 
of racial salvation. What are the Negro’s prospects 
of realizing these ideals in American life? Upon 
the answer to this question hinges the probability of 
the Negro’s continued social performance in accord- 
ance with bourgeois logic as well as the prospects of 
a strictly racial business enterprise, the material base 
without which, his middle-class bias must become 
a useless psychological vestige of social heritage. 


Ill 


Let us examine the postulates of business enter- 
prise as a racial philosophy. Its adherents maintain 
that since the Negro problem is purely economic, 
the solution is the creation of competitive business 
enterprises within the Negro group so as to afford 
employment to Negroes. It is further contended 
that a state of racial economic sufficiency will be 
attained only when the Negro consumes less and 
produces more. 

The growing prevalence of the above type of 
reasoning undoubtedly marks a renaissance of Negro 
economic learning; but one whose philosophic valid- 
ity was lost upon the advent of modern capitalism. 
Before the rise of the bourgeoisie, the doctrine that 
guided the economic policy of nations was mercan- 
tilism. It held that a nation’s stock of gold was the 
best measure of national wealth and power; and 
that the way to increase national. wealth and power 
was by producing goods that could be exported for 
money returns and by consuming less of other na- 
tion’s goods. As modern industrial society gradually 
developed, the economists saw that interdependence 
and not self-sufficiency was the basis of economic 
and social progress. Today, even in that sphere of 
economic life known as international trade, this 
hoary fallacy of economic self-sufficiency has lost 
much of its pristine virtue. The doctrine of com- 
parative costs which is but an extension of the prin- 
ciple of division of labor is of greater importance in 
international trade than is this notion of the self- 


contained community. Obviously in a complex cul- 
ture based upon specialization and interdependence 
of classes and individuals there can be little approxi- 
mation to individual, racial or national self-suf- 
ficiency. 

The absence of statistics on the comparative in- 
dustrial efficiency of racial groups makes it impos- 
sible to ascertain the productivity of different races. 
Such data are not necessary for a refutation of the 
insinuation that the Negro is a parasitical class in 
industrial society. What on earth has the Negro 
been doing these last three hundreds in America 
if he has not been producing? ‘To what has his 
manpower been devoted if not to the increase of 
wealth and services? It is a fact, however, that 
the Negro has rarely owned or controlled the in- 
struments and machines of production, i.e., social 
capital. Nor have the great entrepreneurs been 
recruited from the Negro race. The Negro as a 
freeman arrived very tardily on the scene of capi- 
talistic enterprise and adventure. The greater por- 
tion of the Negro population has been wage-earners 
and chiefly unskilled laborers. This can by no 
twist of economic logic be construed into meaning 
that the Negro has been more of a consumer than 
a producer. And it is futile to point out that after 
all, consumption is merely a demand for production 
and vice versa; for; what these advocates of racial 
business mean by increased productivity is that the 
Negro should procure some of the wealth produc- 
ing factors of the community—which is very differ- 
ent from admonishing him to become more pro- 
ductive. How great are the Negro’s possibilities in 
achieving this goal? If some individuals among the 
Negroes are to suceed as business undertakers, must 
their success be a purely racial phenomenon; or can 
it result from general conditions of the competitive 
economy? Social attitudes being what they are, 
will not the racial identity of Negro enterprise re- 
strict its utility to the Negro group? When pushed 
to its logical extremity, must not this doctrine of 
Negro business enterprise reckon with the feasibility 
of erecting within the already existing national econ- 
omy, a purely racial one? 

Thus far the Negro’s largest economic institu- 
tions have been banks, insurance, and real estate 
corporations and secret fraternities. In short his 
most important economic institutions have been 
financial. Now, the financial superstructure of 
modern capitalism has been built up in order to hold 
together the underlying and somewhat diversified 
but interstitial parts of industry, commerce, and 
agriculture. Industry proper is devoted to the pro- 
duction of goods. Investment banks supply fixed 
capital, and commercial banks and paper houses sup- 
ply working capital for transferring the commodi- 
ties produced. While financial institutions perform 
a useful function in production and exchange oper- 
ations of industrial society, their existence is con- 
tingent, not only upon savings, but a market for 
the. capital which savings place at their disposal. 
The existence of Negro finance organizations may 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 133 


be assured by the savings of the masses. But what 
about the demand for these savings, i.e., the market 
for capital-disposal? If the funds of Negro finance 
institutions flow to the general money market, these 
institutions must ultimately lose their racial signifi- 
cance in the melée of competition—which may not 
be a bad thing;—but more of this later. If the 
available funds do not flow to the general market, 
they must be confined to investments within the 
race. Where is the Negro or group of Negroes 
who owns or controls interest in factories, mines, 
or public utilities that have need of fixed or liquid 
capital? Negro business men do operate funeral 
and embalming, and hair straightening concerns of 
not ordinary capitalization. ‘These are not sufficient- 
ly numerous or potent to give solidity and flexibility 
to any large financial superstructure. The advances 
that Negro finance organizations make must take 
the form of short time consumption loans or, when 
made for a larger period, take the form of a mort- 
gage on real property. At all events their assets are 
of a non-shiftable type. But this does not check 
the Negro’s ambition for multiplying banks and 
finance corporations. 


One argument for the creation of Negro banks is 
that they enable the Negro to keep his earnings 
within the race. ‘The chief lamentation of Negro 
business enterprise is that Negroes carry large de- 
posits with white banks. One Negro banker upon 
visiting New York saw that a great many Negroes 
were depositing their savings with the United States 
Postal Savings Department. This was very dis- 
tasteful to him.. He seemed to have felt that a 
Negro bank should be organized as depository for 
these funds. Perhaps it never dawned on this bank- 
er that the United States Government was at that 
time employing in New York City, alone, more 
Negroes than all of the Negro finance institutions 
combined. Little do these banking promoters realize 
that they and their institutions rest upon the savings 
of Negro masses who are employed, not by Negro 
but by white capitalists. 


Another argument for the creation of Negro 
banks is that they give Negro business men greater 
credit accommodations. White banks, for example, 
refuse to extend the same credit terms on a mort- 
gage in real property in a Negro as in a white com- 
munity. It seems that the policy is not always 
racial. Very often it is economic. A white business 
man who seeks a loan .on property which he owns 
in a Negro neighborhood is likely to receive much 
better terms from a white bank than a Negro own- 
ing the same piece of property. The white bor- 
rower’s direct or indirect credit standing in the 
business community, apart from the security offered, 
plays an important part in the transaction. More- 
over, it is not unlikely that this hypothetical white 
borrower of superior credit standing could obtain 
better accommodations from a Negro creditor than 
could the average Negro borrower. Aside from the 
comparative borrowing strength of the Negro and 


white business man, what is the character of the 
security offered, i.e., the real property in the Negro 
community? Is it good business practice to extend 
the same credit on it as on property of the same 
appraised value in a white community? The opinion 
seems to be that it is not. In certain Negro com- 
munities some property is in exceptional physical 
condition, but the surrounding property has suffered 
such rapid physical depreciation that the whole sec- 
tion is undesirable for residential purposes. The 
value of first class Negro property must for this 
reason fall below what its normal price would 
otherwise be. Moreover, once property is let to 
Negro tenants, its vendibility is restricted and its 
market value reflects the limitation in demand. One 
may easily deplore these conditions but not deny 
that business actuated by the proft motif in a com- 
petitive society is forced to discriminate against 
mortgages on property in Negro communities. And 
the prime position that the real estate mortgage oc- 
cupies in Negro financial operations gives Negro 
banking a. rather non-flexible and investment char- 
acter. 


To the extent that Negro finance institutions 
assist black wage-earners to acquire property, they 
are beneficial, though limited in function. Their 
serviceability could as a matter of fact be heightened 
by organization upon a co-operative basis which 
would permit Negro savers to share in the surpluses. 
But these organizations are conceived in the spirit of 
business individualism. ‘They are not organized for 
racial service but for private profit. ‘The surpluses 
must therefore go to the entrepreneurs, And in 
Negro business enterprise an inordinately high pro- 
portion of the gross profit is diverted by the entre- 
preneur from reinvestment in the business enterprise 
and appropriated to his personal consumption which 
is usually more conspicuously wasteful than that of 
wealthier and more efficient capitalists in the world 
of great economic achievement. As a general ten- 
dency undue absorption of profits will inevitably 
weaken the whole fabric of Negro busines. It has 
already led to what a Negro business man called 
over-expansion which is not over-expansion in any 
real economic sense of over-investment. It is rather 
under-investment; the quest for greater and greater 
profits in face of the limitations placed upon Negro 
finance institutions by their absence of industrial 
foundation and inadequate market for capital, I-ads 
the Negro entrepreneurs into promotions of dubious 
worth. Investments are made in amusement cor- 
porations and other perpetual motion machines that 
are perpetual only to the extent that they secure 
perpetual instalments of investment. But why can’t 
Negro finance institutions secure a firm footing in 
economic life by purchasing the shares of industrial 
corporations or by organizing new ones? 


Before the Negro was emancipated, the great 
American fortunes were in the making. When he 
became a freeman, the foundation of the continental 
railway systems and the later development of mines, 


134 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


factories and fields had been laid. A score of years 
after his emancipation, huge combinations capitalized 
in hundreds of millions arose stifling competition and 
establishing monopoly in industry. “Today some of 
these vertical and horizontal combinations are capi- 
talized at more than a billion dollars (***). ‘They 
have not only established a sort of hegemony in 
industry but have set up interlocking directorates 
and communities of interest in the financial domain. 
Does anyone acquainted with this economic evolu- 
tion believe that the Negro, as such, at this late date 
can by some financial wizardry acquire much of the 
nation’s sources of raw material, or, obtain control 
of any of the productive factors? 

Of course the shares of large industrial and pub- 
lic utilities are purchasable on the market. Suppose 
the Negroes in the United States could be prevailed 
upon to pool their wealth and place it in the hands 
of Negro enterprises so as to gain control of some of 
the numerous corporations by mopping-up their se- 
curities. Any one of a thousand investment bankers 
could bankrupt the whole Negro race between tick- 
ings of the stock-exchange tickers. No doubt some 
sagacious and thrifty Negro individuals, or corpor- 
ations, may purchase securities of existing, or new 
corporations or portions of the issues of foreign and 


domestic governments. Such operations must of ne: - 


cessity be limited. When conducted on a wide scale, 
the Negro business is forced to take chances in the 
general competitive market where small and inex- 
perienced economic endeavor is disadvantaged. Capi- 
talize some racial enterprise at a billion dollars. If 
it would live it must ultimately compete with white 
business. ‘This, for the reasons already alluded to, 
would be its undoing. 

The financial prowess of the Jewish capitalists 
is often cited for Negro emulation. But the exist- 
ence of a large population of poor Jews who—no 
more than Negroes, the occasional object of Jewish 
capitalists’ charity—have escaped the wage-earning 
class merely because of the existence of Jewish fi- 
nanciers, is usually ignored. A more important fact 
of Jewry is ignored: the financial history of the Jew 


(***) Vide Taussig, Principles of Economics, I, 59. 
Also Moody, The Truth About Trusts, 


which dates back to the Middle Ages when the 
Church’s edict against usury gave the Jews monop- 
oly of money lending. 

The logical conclusions from these observations 
may be summarized. 

(1) Negro financial institutions can neither hope 
to exert any considerable control over national in- 
dustry requiring fixed capital nor over purely com- 
mercial transactions necessitating working capital. 

(2) Social attitudes being what they are, the 
racial identity of Negro economic institutions will, 
perforce of these attitudes, confine their services to 
the Negro race. 


(3) The restriction of the dealings of Negro 
finance institutions to the race will shunt them from 
the general investment market, thus further proscrib- 
ing their utility. 

(4) These institutions may incidentally assist 
some Negroes to acquire a stake in the economic or- 
der and furnish employment to a limited number of 
educated Negroes, but the masses of Negroes must 
continue to look to white capitalism for employment. 

(5) They are a sort of illogically necessary ap- 
purtenance in an economic world where the large 
capital accumulations necessary for production must 
depend on Negro as well as on white savers, but 
where it is felt desirable for social reasons to main- 
tain white and black institutions even at the cost of 
tragic waste. 


(6) The philosophy of wealth and economic en- 
terprise grips the imagination of the Negro even in 
the lower stratum. 

(7) The tenacity with which this belief in racial 
economic independence is held results from a fructifi- 
cation of the bourgeois ideals that social pressure 
ue forced Negroes to emulate, irrespective of social 
class. 


(8) And while there is need for theoretical for- 
mulation of Negro economic experience, there are 
few, if any, trained Negro economists. But even 
if theoreticians existed in the Negro population, their 
profoundest formulations, however rational, when 
contrary to popular assumptions would be futile 
speculation to a racial group that is looking for solu- 
tions and is impatient of theory. 


TO A YOUNG POET 


By GEORGE CHESTER MORSE 


Lincoln University 


Just as molten thoughts o’erflow 
From an unknown fiery source 
To form themselves in poetry, 
Such 1s the wavering self in woe 
Seeking life’s straight or winding course 


To infinity. 


ys. on , 


EBONY TAN DY ErOPAZ 


A PAGE OF UNDERGRADUATE VERSE 


TO A MOCKING BIRD 
By HERMAN E. FIELDS 


Shaw University 

I have listened, oft have listened 
Lo a voice I love to hear, 
Soft wuts echo oft resounded, 
falling faintly on my ear. 


And I asked meas I listened 
Lo that voice, so clear and sweet, 
As I wandered in the wildwood, 
As I heard the notes repeat. 


Gould this voice of wondrous beauty, 
Trilling anthems so divine, 

Be a seraph, nymph, or angel, 
Thus to cheer this soul of mine. 


Was it spirit, the harp of Nature, 
Chanting praises to the skies, 
Or the loving voice, transcendent, 


Of a bird in Paradise? 


And when evening falls upon me, 
Still its little form I see, 

Fitting in the pale blue heaven 
Or about the leafy tree. 


Even then the echoes haunt me; 
Even yet I hear the cry, 

Ringing still though but a memory 
That will live and never die. 


CONGENITAL 


By KATHERINE JACKSON 
Tougaloo College 


A pig will be a pig 
It matters not his name— 


Whenever he is fed, 


He always acts the same. 


IDYLL 
By GLaDys M. JAMESON 
Howard University 

Tall, straight birches 
Starkly etched against the sky— 
Virgin slim they stand, mutely questing,— 
Silver fingers pointed upwards. 
Lissom willows bend 
Their silver leaves cast dappled shade 
Upon the dimpled bosom 
Of the placid, dreaming stream, 


If nothing touches the palm leaves 
They do not rustle. 


—An African Proverb. 


A DRAWING FOR 


COPPER SUN, by Charles Cullen 
Courtesy of Harper and Bros. 


VERISIMILTUDE 


By JOHN P. Davis 


am a rather young man, with no especial knack for Writing, who has a 
~ Story to tell. I want to tell it as I feel it—without restraint—but I can’t 
) do that. Critics are already waxing sarcastic about this way of doing 
things. They think it is too emotional, too melodramatic. I am going 
} to attempt to tell the story I have in me without any fuss or sensation. 


SECS @ To achieve “grandeur of generality,” to attain the “universal” rather than 
he “specific” —these are the things I am trying to do. I want you to say when you 
have finished reading: “That reminds me of .. . .” or “There are thousands like that 


character; I may never have known one, but there are thousands, thousands. There 
must be.” 

Now you can help me, if you will forget everything else in the world except this 
story. Whether it actually happened or not is of little consequence. The important 
thing is that it might have happened, that, in mathematical or scientific terms, given 
such causes working on such characters, the results about which I am going to tell 
you would have happened. If-at any time you feel that there is something in. the 
story that couldn’t happen on your own main street then stop reading, I don’t want 
to create monsters, but real, living characters. 

Now this is the story of a man. A man is the hero of most stories. Man is the 
hero of life. This man was a Negro. Negroes are common enough. There are fif- 
teen million, more or less, in the United States alone. This Negro man was in love. 
Love is the theme of ninety percent of all fiction. I doubt that it is the theme of ninety 
per cent of life. But no matter, it is common enough in these days. 

The next fact in the plot may seem to point the way to something grotesque, some- 
thing that veers away off from the center of normal human existence like a comet. 
The Negro man loved a white woman. Are you disappointed already? Well, I am 
sorry. But I was a census-taker in Virginia. And you woud be surprised at the num- 
ber of cases of intermarriage I found. That is why they passed an anti-intermarriage 
law there. There are such laws in nearly all southern states. There must be a reason 
back of these statutes. Legislatures don’t pass laws for nothing. So it wouldn’t be 
strange if I wrote a story about a Negro man who loved a white woman and married 
her. But I have no intention of marrying my characters. In fact my plot exists be- 
cause they did not marry. I say only that he loved her. Whether she loved him, I 
leave you to judge when you have read the story. 

This Negro man was tall, young, and brown. There is nothing to quarrel with 
here. I haven’t said he was handsome. Surely, young, tall, brown Negro bundle- 
wrappers in down-town New York department stores are common enough not to shock 
you out of belief. And just as ordinary and matter-of-fact are slim, little, rather-nice- 
looking white salesgirls. 

You see these two characters now, don’t you? You see them working side by side 
ten hours a day. One is selling yard after yard of vari-colored cambric to fat house- 
wives who are harder to please than you would expect Mrs. J. Pierpont Morgan 
to be. You see these termagants snarl at the shopgirl and then go to buy cambric at 
a cheaper price in one of the cut-rate stores. Of course, it is the most natural thing 
in the world that the shopgirl should get angry and stick her tongue out at them when 
they have turned their backs. -- 


137 


138 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Take a look at the other character. He is at the end of the counter wrapping up 
package after package which the girl hands him. He hears the housewives quarrel- 
some babble. He sees the girl make faces at them. He sympathizes and smiles at 
her as if to say: “I understand how it is with you.” The girl has caught the smile 
and thrown it back. She wants to talk about that last old biddy who put on the airs 
of her mistress. And she doesn’t see why she shouldn’t talk to this bundle-wrapper. 
He smiled; he would understand. She goes over while there is a lull in the sale of 
cambric and chats with him about “that old fool who expected to get something for 
nothing and blamed me because Gimbels charged a cent less per yard for cambric 
than we did. Why the heck didn’t she go there in the first placer’ He laughs at 
the way she got back at the woman. She laughs. The tension is broken. They under- 
stand. Isn’t all this about as natural and plausible as may be? Put yourself in place 
of either of the characters. Would you have acted differently? 

Common suffering leads to mutual interest, ‘That’s why men forced to fight 
against tyranny form friendships for one another. It is just as plausible, then, that 
this girl and this man, united by laughter, should form a combine against stupid cus- 
tomers. Talk with a man and you find out that he isn’t so different after all. “You 
can’t know a man and hate him,” said Woodrow Wilson. The girl, Mame, (we might 
as well call her that as anything else) probably never heard that statement, but she 
was human nature just the same. She talked with this bundle-wrapper. Let’s call 
him “Paul.” Mame found that Paul went to movies, read the Daily Graphic, and 
was on the whole a normal human being. She forgot to notice any difference in him. 
And in the little respites from selling cambric she liked to talk to him about this, 
that, or the other thing. What they actually said doesn’t matter. ‘This will serve as 
a specimen of what they might have said. 

Mame: “I'll sure be glad when six o’clock comes.” 

Paul: “So will I.” 

Now right here I had better tell you that I am not trying to reproduce Paul’s southern 
accent or Mame’s American cockney dialect. How they said things doesn’t matter. 
It is sufficient to give you the impression of what they thought. Your imagination 
will have to do the rest. 

Paul: “Have you heard anything about the new rule for closing on Saturdays 
beginning in June?” 

Mame: “TI haven’t heard anything definite, but I certainly hope they do.” 

But enough of this. The things they talked about, then, were just every-day 
matters-of-fact about work, life, and movies. Paul never tried to go any farther. Mame 
never said more than: “See you tomorrow,” when she pulled the black cloth over the 
cambric counter and arranged her cloche hat on her sleek round head. 

In real life things don’t continue as they began ever. You come to know a person 
as an acquaintance. ‘Then you are thrown into more intimate contact with him. After 
that it isn’t long before you like him better or like him less. ‘That was the case with 
Abelard and Heloise. It was true of Paul and Mame. 

It won’t take much imagination to suppose that Mame lived on 119th street and 
Paul on 131st. White people live on 119th; black people inhabit 131st. It shouldn't 
strain your fancy either to imagine that they both usually rode home from work on 
top of a Seventh Avenue bus. Suppose that coming out from work one evening, some 
two or three months after their first laugh together, Mame should be waiting for a 
bus at the same time and the same corner as Paul. This might not have happened. 
Paul might have lived in Brooklyn and Mame have been accustomed to going home 
on the subway. But it isn’t being sensational to throw characters together to aid the 
action of the plot. So they did meet each other one night about a quarter after six 
o’clock waiting for a bus. Paul tipped his hat; Mame smiled. Bus Number Two 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 139 


came along crowded. ‘They went up to the top. There was one seat vacant. They 
sat down together. They talked of everything you think they would talk about. ‘here 
were no distractions to interrupt their conversation. They talked as they passed 
throngs of tired everyday toilers pouring out of stores and warehouses at 42nd street. 
They talked as they passed alongside Central Park. They talked as the bus trundled 
into upper Seventh Avenue. Mame got off at 119th street. She smiled and said good- 
bye. ‘here are flaws in this little episode, I admit. A little too much coincidence. 
A bit too little motivation. But if you are not too fastidious a reader, I think you 
will let it pass. For at least it is within the realms of plausibility. 

Let us say that Paul and Mame did not meet again for a week, -two weeks, a 
month. But don’t let us say they never met again. They did. Perhaps Paul covertly 
planned it. Perhaps Mame did. That doesn’t matter. ‘They met. ‘Uhat is sufficient. 
And they met several times. In fact, it became a habit for them to ride up on the 
bus together. Am I losing reality? I think not. You see after all the thing I am 
suggesting is a mere mechanical detail. Although I handle it clumsily, the intrinsic 
design of the life I am trying to depict cannot be destroyed. 

“So far so good,” you say, “but whither go we?” or, if you incline to slang, ‘“What 
has their riding home from work together got to do with the wholesale DPricesor 
onionsr” ‘The answer is simple. It was on such occasions that Mame found in Paul 
something she liked. What was the “something,” you ask? Say Mame discovered 
that Paul was going to night school in preparation for a clerical examination for a 
position in the municipal department of New York. Not much to admire from your 
point of view. But suppose all Mame’s life had been one of crowded tenements. 
Say she lived with a cross old aunt, wanted an escape, wanted to get away from hum- 
drum life, to be something better, to marry a decent man—(God knows every woman 
wants that.) Every woman admires a man who is doing things. And Paul from 
Mame’s point of view was doing things. She said to herself: “This colored fellow is 
different from anybody else I’ve ever known. He isaman. I like him. I wish Albert 
(let Albert be what we Americans would call Mame’s “steady feller”) I wish Albert 
would go to night school.” 

And Paul probably thought: “This white girl is a lot less stuck-up than some 
colored girls I know. She’s darn decent to talk with me like this. I wonder if she 
would go to the movies some night with me.” 

Here we are hundreds of sentences and thousands of words from the beginning 
and never a sign of complications. Well, they will be with us in a moment, First 
I must get Paul and Mame in love. I could spare myself a great deal of tedious 
detail by just saying they came to love one another. But you would not believe me. 
All readers come from Missouri. Anyway I am going to compromise with principle 
and say that Paul came to love Mame first because of novelty and then because he 
was forced to admire a woman who broke convention to love him. And Mame fell 
in love with Paul because to her he represented a somewhat better man than any 
other she had ever known. The process of falling in love is an evasive thing at best. 
You somehow know you are in love, but when and how and, above all, why defy 
analysis. It is an elusive something. Say, then, that these two characters fell in love. 
If you want a dash of sentiment say they saw dawn in each others eyes. There are 
lovers that do. If you are practical say Mame saw possibilities of a three room apart- 
ment and no more drudgery. Repeat for emphasis: they fell in love. What about 
Albert. Well, let Albert be a wastrel, a drunkard, a loafer. You will find a great 
many like him. Doubtless, you know a few. 

I promised you complications. Life demands them as well as you. Complica- 
‘tionse Here they are. Paul takes Mame to see Lya de Putti in “Variety” at the 
‘Rialto. A colored fellow whom he knows sees them. Next morning all Harlem is 
gossiping about Paul who has turned “pink-chaser”—(apologies to Mr, Carl Van 


140 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


Vechten). When Harlem talks about you it means that you feel curious eyes staring 
at you. The spirit of scandal stalks your path. People you know avert their eyes as 
you pass. Stand on the street corner and you stand alone. That is the effect of the 
colored Mrs. Grundy on a man. The white Mrs. Grundy may look different, but 
“the lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skins.” On 119th street houses 
have just as many eyes as on 31st. So when Mame let Paul take her home once or 
twice, people talked. Albert heard about it and ‘“‘raised Hell.” ‘The aunt heard about 
‘t and threatened to kick Mame out if she didn’t stop “going around with a nigger. 
Mame looked guilty. ; 

Does this suit you? You have the sunshine and now you see the clouds. Are you 
worried? You should be. I am not one to lead you up to tragedy and then turn 
aside to talk about flowers. Well, you know and I know that life wouldn't let this 
end happily. There has got to be death, there has got to be sorrow. And since it 
must be, let it come soon. 

But I am not quite ready for the show-down. Like a woman who powders her 
nose before every great moment of her life, I must hesitate, demur—in a word—build 
up suspense. We need emotional intensification here. For that purpose let Paul 
be happy enough with Mame to forget the snubs of his own people. Let Mame pacity 
her aunt temporarily by threatening to leave and thus deplete the family revenue eleven 
dollars a week. The eleven dollars represents Mame’s contribution for room and 
board. Leave a cancerous wound in the souls of both characters, if you must; but let 
them live yet awhile. For, like Alamanzor, they have “not leisure yet to die.” 

Don’t be provoked with me. Don’t accuse me of “playing in wench-like words 
with something serious.” Peace! brother. Peace! sister. All will be clear in only 
a little while. Soon you will know. Soon you will sit back in your chair and see 
Mame and Paul as duly garnished sacrifices. And whether you like them or not, you 
will know them as they are. 

Paul and Mame were happy. ‘They went to Staten Island on picnics. ‘They 
went to movies. Paul gave Mame candy. Mame gave Paul a tie for his birthday. 
And love—the ideal of humanity—lived in their hearts. Or if this is too poetic, just 
say they enjoyed being with one another. I have not explained their love fully enough, 
maybe—but can you explain it better? If you can, please fill in the facts for yourself. 

When two persons become intimate with one another they lose their sense of 
proportion. They respect neither time, custom, nor place. This fact got Paul and 
Mame into trouble. They didn’t know when it was time to stop talking and pay atten- 
tion to their work. You see, it was one thing to exchange a few commonplaces while 
at work; but, it was quite another to delay customers or to smile at each other while 
the world was waiting for a yard of cambric. Business men know such delays irritate 
their customers. That is why they hire floor-managers to snoop on their salesgirls. 
You see what I am driving at, don’t your I am getting Paul and Mame into more 
trouble. Soon I’ll have them discharged. But, not before I give a sidelight on the 
episode. 

: Shopgirls have had love affairs before. ‘They have kept customers waiting before; 
and have got away with it under the very eyes of floor managers. It isn’t enough, 
therefore, for me to offer this as the only excuse for getting Mame and Paul discharged. 
But I can suggest others. A young Negro man talking to a young white woman for 
more than five minutes is always subject to suspicion. And when this is repeated 
again and again, scandal gets busy. You know this as well as I do. ‘There is still 
another reason. Perhaps, you remember Albert. I shouldn’t have had any justification 
for naming him if I did not intend to weave him into the plot. It would have been 
faulty technique. So Albert comes in here. He enters through the department store 
door and makes his way to the cambric counter. Now he is on the scene. He is half- 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 141 


drunk and a little loud. It is ten-thirty in the morning and Albert has come to tell 
Paul that he had better “damn sight” leave his woman alone—all white women, in 
fact. ‘That’s just what Albert did. He “bawled Paul out” right before a crowd of 
people. And Mame couldn’t keep her temper. She turned red in the face. She dug 
her nails in her hands and wanted to fly at Albert. Paul held her back. He put his 
arm around her. The crowd grew larger. A policeman took Albert away. ‘That is 
all there is for Albert to do in this story. The floor-manager whispered something to 
Paul and about two hours later both Paul and Mame had their salaries in little manila 
envelopes. You can’t blame the floor-manager very much. It was for the good of 
the business. Anyway as he told Paul, he had noticed for some time that they were 
not paying attention to business. He didn’t get angry. He was simply hard, cold and 
matter-of-fact. That was all. 

Here we are facing the climax of this personally conducted tour of a short story. 
Mame and Paul are out of a job. They have to live. Mame is crying. Life seems 
unfair, bitter, unkind. Don’t weep because Mame did. Stand on the sidelines and 
see the show. What are Hecuba’s tears to you, or Mame’s? I only record that she 
wept because, under the circumstances, I think she would have done so. Paul gritted 
his teeth. They would get a job soon, he told her. And it wouldn’t be long before 
he would be able to take the clerical examination. Then they could get married and 
go to Atlantic City for a honeymoon. All that is needed here is a little time and a 
little sanity. But life would cease to be a tragedy, if time would wait for us. The 
harsh reality, the bitterness of life comes because everything in the world is run by 
clocks and whistles. Time to get up. Time to retire. Time to live. And time to 
die. To use a slang expression—Mame and Paul “didn’t Petethicy Dreak,. 

If you have ever hunted for a job in New York, you know what it is like to do so. 
Your feet hurt after the first two or three days. You get tired of being told that 
there are no vacancies. Sometimes you go back to the same place on five or six 
occasions before you can find the employment manager in his office, and then he only 
shakes his head. Sometimes you think you've got a job; then you are asked where 
you worked last, how long, why you quit, if you have any references. Your heart 
sinks and you go out of the door of the inner office, through the outer office, down the 
elevator and out into the street. And all the time you are saying to yourself: “Oh God, 
dear God, am I your creature?” A man can stand a great deal more of this sort of 
thing than a woman. Mame gave up; Paul lasted. There were other reasons for 
Mame’s surrender but this had its share in the result. 

Mame, I have said, contributed eleven dollars a week to her aunt. A week or so 
after she was fired her contributions ceased. Mame hadn't saved up much. Soon that 
was gone. You understand how that might happen, I know. Money doesn’t come 
from the skies. And the girl’s name was Mame and not Cinderella. Mame’s aunt 
was angry with Mame in the first place for “taking up with a nigger.” She was 
angrier when Mame lost her job. “I-told-you-so’s” dinned in Mame’s ears and buzzed 
in her head. It was too much for the aunt to stand when Mame couldn’t pay her the 
eleven dollars. Mame had to do one thing or the other: “either get out or give up that 
nigger.” ‘Those were the aunt’s own words. Do you think that the aunt is too hard 
a character? Read any metropolitan daily. The world is getting hard and cold. All 
the world wants is money, Money was all Mame’s aunt wanted. So she turned Mame 
out. But she wasn’t altogether cold. She didn’t really mean to turn her out. She 
wanted only to each Mame a lesson. After all blood is thicker than water. She didn’t 
believe Mame would really go. She wanted her to stop being a fool and come down 
to earth. There were plenty of decent young white men she could marry. It was 
infatuation or something that got Mame this way. If she had her way, she’d either put 
Marne in the insane asyum or that “nigger” in jail. Whoever heard of such “carry- 


142 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


ings-on?” She was tired of having people talk about her. She wasn’t going to be 
related to a “nigger” even by marriage. 

Don’t blame Mame’s aunt any more than you did the floor-manager or Albert. 
All-—all of them are just cogs in the wheels of the world. If you must fume and fret, 
say simply that all the world’s a pasture and each one in the world, a jackass. 

This is what human beings such as Mame’s aunt and Albert and the floor-manager 
might have done to such a girl as Mame. What would Mame have done? Probably, 
gone to Paul. She did. But he could not take care of her. He had no money. He 
was being threatened himself with being put out of his rooming house because he 
didn’t pay his rent. It was a poor time to try to bring a young, unmarried white woman 
into a respectable Harlem rooming house. Go...go where? Somewhere, you say? 
But where? There are streets. But streets in New York are either covered with soft, 
cold snow, or melted by the rays of a hot blazing sun. Try living in New York with- 
out money. Try living anywhere without money. Friends, you suggest? I wish I 
could. But where are friends when your aunt turns you out of doors and you have 
done what Mame had done? Then, who with pride would go a begging? Only one 
thing remains: it whispers in your ear every time there seems no way out—suicide. 

Suicide isn’t normal. Only abnormal people think of it. Joy may drop from you 
like a dead bird from a leafless tree, but, somehow, life is still sweet. But too much 
defeat, too much bitterness make people abnormal. Consider a woman who has 
drudged all her life; put her in Mame’s place. You will find that she is like the 
string on a violin: draw her too tightly and she snaps. Something snapped in Mame. 
She kissed Paul goodnight in the park, spent her last dollar and a half to get a room in 
a settlement house—and turned on the gas. Don’t blame Paul. He didn’t know she 
was going to commit suicide. He thought he would see her the next day. Don’t say 
Mame isn’t true to life. If you believe she is not, live her life over. Spend two months 
looking for a job; wandering willy-nilly. Then put her back into the picture as.a 
human being. I think you will succeed. 

What about Paul. There isn’t much to tell. He stood it. He stood Mame’s 
death. But how he stood it I leave you to imagine. You will agree that he grew 
bitter. You will not agree that he would commit suicide. That is the sort of melo- 
dramatic thing I want to avoid. I am sorry Mame had to commit suicide. But I 
don’t see how she could help it. Do your 

Suppose that after Mame’s death Paul got a job as a longshoreman on the New 
York docks. Not as clerk in the municipal department, mind you. He had given up 
night school when he lost his job. Then Mame had died and he hadn’t gone back. 
He was bitter, he grew cynical... No money, no job, Mame, were the causes. He 
might have got over it some time, but that time didn’t come. Ts this anti-climactic? 
Not quite. Remember Paul is really the chief character. 

When vou have gone through what Paul went through, you won’t be happy and 
optimistic. You are apt to look on the world and people in it as just so much damned 
rot. You are apt to walk around with a chip on your shoulder. And a chip on your 
shoulder doesn’t help you any if you are a longshoreman. They are hard working, 
hard swearing, sweating Negroes, Irish and what-nots—these longshore gangs. And 
the dock is no place for Hamlet. Even Falstaff would have a hard time getting 
along. You’ve got to laugh loudly, work hard, and mix with the gang. Paul did 
none of these things. He felt just a little above them. He was always moody, intro- 
spective, hard to get along with. Even Negroes despised him. You can imagine the 
opinion that the Irish held. 

Under the circumstances can’t you imagine Paul becoming a flaming pillar of rage 
when an Irish longshore boss yelled at him: ‘Hey, nigger, stop dreaming and go to 
work. Yes I mean you, you son of a....” But the Irish fellow didn’t finish his oath, 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 143 


Paul hit him over the head with a chisel. Chisels are common on the docks. They 
are used to open boxes. Paul opened the fellows head with one. He didn’t kill him. 
The Irish foreman lived to testify against Paul. He was quite well when the District 
Attorney painted a gaudy word picture of how Paul lost his last job. He saw twelve 
ordinary men, readers of the Daily Graphic, cigar salesmen, shopkeepers, butchers, in- 
surance agents—all, somehow, a little influenced by the way Paul glared at people in 
the courtroom and by the District Attorney’s subtle suggestion that Paul had been the 
cause of a white woman’s suicide. Of course, they thought more about the affair than 
actually happened. Can’t you see that District Attorney? He’s running on the State 
ticket next year. He’s got to make a record. Some cases he can’t prosecute to win. 
Politics won’t let him. Here is one in which he can have a free hand. Here he can 
make a name for himself. Look at the jury. They don’t know much about sociology, 
but they know where to get the best beer in New York City. Look at the judge. He’s 
a scholarly man, but he’s sick of the crime wave. Something’s got to be done. And 
Paul to him is obviously a criminal. Look at the young man who calls himself a lawyer. 
He is defending Paul and he means well. But his best js not good enough. Maybe next 
year or year after he'll be a good lawyer. Paul won't smile, he won’t plead. He is 
obstinate. I think you will find little fault with the verdict. Guilty. The law is the 
law. He was lucky to get only seven years. 

I have outlined this story and set it in New York. If you like you may write it 
to please your taste and set it any place under the sun. The results would not vary 
a great deal. If you must have a happy ending, pardon Paul, or, bring him back. from 
prison and regenerate him. But I doubt if you will succeed. It is hard to get a 
pardon. It is harder to reform a man who looks on life pessimistically for seven years. 
At least grant that what I have outlined is true or might be true. As someone has 
written (a Jewish poet, I think) : 

The sum and substance of the tale is this 
The rest is but the mise en scéne 
And if I have painted it amiss 
I am a prattler and a charlatan. 
Oh yes, you will want a moral. I had forgot. Take it from Shakespeare :— 
“Golden lads and girls all must 
Like chimney sweepers come to dust.” 


UNDERGRADUATE VERSE 


FISK UNIVERSITY 
NIGHT WHITE GOD 


By ‘T. THOMAS FORTUNE FLETCHER 


Night in the South God is white, 
Is a black mother Why should I pray? 
Mourning for murdered sons If I called Him, 
And ravished daughters. He'd turn away. 
LIFE 

By RICHARD JEFFERSON POEM 
Life is a woman’s tongue ity, WoT Rae OS 
That babbles on and on : 
Till quick, impatient death I longed to write a poem of life, 


Weary of hearing it One that was fierce and bitter, wild. 
Constantly rave But wrote of stars when once I saw 
Conceals it A white man strangle his black child. 


Mrs. Bailey Pays The Rent 


By IRA DEA. REID 


Won't you come home Bill Bailey? 
Won't you come home,” 
She mourns the whole day long. 
“T’'ll do the cooking, I'll pay the rent, 
I know I’ve done you wrong. 
Remember that rainy evening 
I drove you out, 
With nothing but a fine tooth comb? 
Aint that a shame, 
I know I’m to blame, 
Bill Bailey, won’t you please come home?” 


—Old popular song. 


vived survive.” Twenty to thirty couples packed into two small rooms, “slow- 
dragging” to the plaintive blues of the piano player, whose music had a boss accom- 
paniment furnished by his feet. The piano was opened top and front that the strains 
may be more distinct, and that the artist may have the joy of seeing as well as hearing 
his deft touches (often played by “ear”) reflected in the mechanics of the instrument. 
They were a free-“joy-unconfined” group. Their conventions were their own. If they 
wished to guffaw they did—if they wished to fight they did. But they chiefly danced— 
not with the aloofness of a modern giglio but with fervor. What a picture they pre- 
sented! Women in ginghams or cheap finery, men in peg top trousers, silk shirts, 
“loud” arm bands, and the ever present tan shoes with the “bull dog” toe. Feet stamped 
merrily—songs sung cheerily—No blues writer can ever record accurately the tones 
and words of those songs—they are to be heard and not written—bodies sweating, 
struggling in their effort to get the most of the dance; a drink of “lightning” to accele- 
rate the enthusiasm—floors creaking and sagging—everybody happy. 


144 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 145 


During the dance as well as the intermission, you bought your refreshments. This 
was a vital part of the evening’s enjoyment. But what food you could get for a little 
money! Each place had its specialties—‘‘Hoppinjohn,” (rice and black-eyed peas) 
or Mulatto rice (rice and tomatoes). Okra gumbo, Sweet potato pone—sometimes 
_ Chicken—Chitterlings—Hog maws—or other strictly southern dishes. You ate your 
fill. Dancing was resumed and continued until all were ready to. leave—or it had 
suddenly ended in a brawl causing the “Black Maria” to take some to the station house 
and the police sending the remaining folk to their respective homes. 

And there were those among us who had a reverential respect for such affairs. At 
that time there was no great popularity attached to a study of the Negro in his social 
environment. ‘These were just plain folks having a good time. On the other hand, 
they were capable of description, and to those of us who knew, they were known as 
“struggles,” “break-downs,” “razor-drills,” “flop-wallies” and ‘chitterling parties.” 
These they were in fact as well as fancy. It was a struggle to dance in those crowded 
little rooms, while one never knew if the cheaply constructed flooring would collapse 
in the midst of its sagging and creaking. What assurance did one have that the glisten- 
ing steel of a razor or “switch blade” would not flash before the evening’s play was 
done? And very often chitterlings were served—yet by the time forty sweating bodies 
had danced in a small parlor with one window—a summer’s evening—and continued 
to dance—well the party still deserved that name. But Mrs. Bailey paid her rent. 


NEWS ITEM: “Growing out of economic stress, this form of 
nocturnal diversion has taken root in Harlem—that section known 
as the world’s largest Negro centre. Its correct and more dignified 
name is “Parlor Social,’ but in the language of the street, it ts 
caustically referred to as.a “house rent party.” 


With the mass movement of Southern Negroes to Northern Cities, came their 
little custom. Harlem was astounded. Socially minded individuals claimed that the 
H.C.L. with the relative insufficiency of wages was entirely responsible for this igno- 
-minious situation; that the exorbitant rents paid by the Negro wage earners had given 
rise to the obnoxious “‘house rent party.” ‘The truth seemed to be that the old-party 
of the South had attired itself a la Harlem. Within a few years the custom developed 
into a business venture whereby a tenant sought to pay a rent four, five and six times as 
great as was paid in the South. It developed by-products both legal and otherwise, 
hence it became extremely popular. 


SSS SSS 
Papa is mad about the way you do, 
So meet the gang and Skoodle um Skoo at 


Yes sir thats my baby and [ don’t mean maybe 


yoo will find ber at If youcant Charleston or de the pigeon 


SS RT i 

A SOCIAL WHIST PARTY A Sociau Wuist Party avn Gaeesh’ Partgean 

given by ocia arty 
MRS EMILY WILLIAMS To be given GIVEN BY 

= at id pce 135th ne ete’. 1925 At the residence of JAS. BENEFIELD STEWART & HOLTON 

Cee ae led hostel fe Campbell : At 20 Wea | 34th Street ground fl. E. 6 Bradhurst Ave 
Refreshments Served Saturday evening Sept. 31d 1927 Saturday Evening. Sept. 25, ’26 
bring your friends Good Music. Refreshments served GOOD MUSIC AND REFRESHMENTS 


Seve your tears [ov a rainy dey, 
We are giving a party where you can play 


With red mammas and too bad Sheabes ie: aaving GichPaceniia bard eouonteat tiny: 
0 wear their dresses ve their knees je, Eapa, § ), be- WOBO5506505660006006050000S4040002 F000 - 
he mess peoaey with ie toy nee a | conce banie gone Leal bare Ke Se | | Papa, if you want to see Mama do the Black 
AtA ‘ = == { 
RTY A Novelty Matinee Dance |; gin: om 
AES ae j [—— jo A SOCIAL PARTY 
iven By 4 + given by 
Mrs. Helen Carter*& Mrs. Mandy Wesley ; Hi c HIN K i MRS. KELLY 
3| 11 eft 144th Street. Apt. 27 f 8 WEST 134th STREET, 1 flight, west side 
t 227 West 18th St, H : : 
Sept. 24th, ete AS oo low if Sunday. June 27th from 4,until? iat a eaariey Evening, ea! 4 a 
if jusic ereshments Ser 


GOOD MUSIG REFRESHMENTS {Se Plenty Music Refreshments served 
= = a 7 a ox Catal a LO ES ED: ees eee + 
rien Priating Stud'o 79 Woat 131at Street f = 


146 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


There has been an evolution in the eclat of the rent party since it has become 
“Harlemized.” The people have seen a new light, and are no longer wont to have it 
go unnamed. They called it a “Parlor Social.” That term, however, along with 
“Rent Party” is for the spoken word. “Social Whist Party” looks much better in 
print and has become the prevailing terminology. Nor is its name restricted to these. 
Others include “Social Party,” “Too Terrible Party,” “Too Bad Party,” “Matinee 
Party,” “Parlor Social,” “Whist Party,” and “Social Entertainment.” And, along 
with the change in nomenclature has come a change in technique. No longer does 
the entrepreneur depend upon the music to welcome his stranger guests; nor does he 
simply invite friends of the neighborhood. The rent party ticket now turns the trick. 

There straggles along the cross-town streets of North Harlem a familiar figure. 
A middle aged white man, bent from his labor as the Wayside Printer, is pushing a 
little cart which has all of the equipment necessary for setting up the rent party ticket. 
The familiar tinkle of his bell in the late afternoon brings the representative of some 
family to his side. While you wait, he sets up your invitation with the bally-ho heading 
desired, and at a very reasonable price. The grammar and the English may be far 
from correct, but they meet all business requirements since they bring results. What 
work the Wayside Printer does not get goes to the nearest print shop; some of which 
specialize in these announcements. 

A true specimen of the popular mind is expressed in these tickets. The heading 
may be an expression from a popular song, a slang phrase, a theatrical quip or “poetry.” 
A miscellaneous selection gives us the following: “Come and Get it Fixed”; “Leaving 
Me Papa, It’s Hard To Do Because Mama Done Put That Thing On You”; “If You 
Can’t Hold Your Man, Don’t Cry After He’s Gone, Just Find Another”; “Clap Your 
Hands Here Comes Charlie and He’s Bringing Your Dinah Too”; “Old Uncle Joe, 
the Jelly Roll King is Back in Town and is Shaking That Thing”; “Here I am 
Again. Who? Daddy Jelly Roll and His Jazz Hounds”; “It’s Too Bad Jim, But if 
You Want To Find a Sweet Georgia Brown, Come to the House of Mystery”; “You 
Don’t Get Nothing for Being an Angel Child, So you Might as Well Get Real Busy 
and Real Wild”. 

And at various parties we find special features, among them being “Music by 
the Late Kidd Morgan”; “Music by Kid Professor, the Father of the Piano”; “Music 
by Blind Johnny”; “Music by Kid Lippy”; “Skinny At the Traps”; “Music Galore” ; 
“Charge De Affairs Bessie and Estelle”; “Here You'll Hear that Sweet Story That’s 
Never Been Told;” “Refreshments to Suit”; “Refreshments by “Che Cheater’.” All of 
these present to the average rent party habitueé a very definite picture of what is to be 
expected, as the card is given to him on the street corner, or at the subway station. 

The parties outdo their publicity. There is always more than has been announced 
on the public invitation. Though no mention was made of an admission fee, one 
usually pays from twenty-five to fifty cents for this privilege. The refreshments are 
not always refreshing, but are much the same as those served in parts of the South, 
with gin and day-old Scotch extra. The Father of the Piano lives up to his reputation 
as he accompanies a noisy trap drummer, or a select trio composed of fife, guitar, and 
saxophone. 

Apart from the admission fee and the sale of food, and drinks, the general tenor 
of the party is about the same as one would find in a group of “intellectual liberals” 
having a good time. Let us look at one. We arrived a little early—about nine-thirty 
o’clock. The ten persons present, were dancing to the strains of the Cotton Club O1- 
chestra via radio. The drayman was just bringing two dozen chairs from a nearby 
undertaker’s establishment, who rents them for such affairs. The hostess introduced 
herself, asked our names, and politely informed us that the “admittance fee” was thirty- 
five cents, which we paid. We were introduced to all, the hostess not remembering 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 147 


a single name. Ere the formality was over, the musicians, a piano player, saxophonist, 
and drummer, had arrived and immediately the party took on life. We learned that 
the saxophone player had been in big time vaudeville; that he could make his instru- 
ment “cry” ; that he had quit the stage to play for the parties because he wanted to stay in 
New York. 

There were more men than women, so a poker game was started in the next room, 
with the woman who did not care to dance, dealing. The music quickened the dancers. 
They sang “Muddy Water, round my feet—ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta”. One girl remarked— 
“Now this party’s getting right.” The hostess informed us of the menu for the evening 
—Pig feet and Chili—Sandwiches 4 la carte, and of course if you were thirsty, there 
was some ‘‘good stuff” available. Immediately, there was a rush to the kitchen, where 
the man of the house served your order. 

For the first time we noticed a man who made himself conspicuous by his watchdog 
attitude toward all of us. He was the “Home Defense Officer,” a private detective 
who was there to forestall any outside interference, as well as prevent any losses on the 
inside on account of the activity of the “Clean-up Men.” There were two clean-up 
men there that night and the H.D.O. had to be particularly careful lest they. walk 
away with two or three fur coats or some of the household furnishings. - Sometimes 
these men would be getting the “lay” of the apartment for a subsequent visit. 

There was nothing slow about this party. Perfect strangers at nine o’clock were boon 
companions at eleven. The bedroom had become the card room—a game of “skin” 
was in progress on the floor while dice were rolled on the bed. There was something 
“shady” about the dice game, for one of the players was always having his dice caught. 
The musicians were still exhorting to the fifteen or twenty couples that danced. Bedlam 
reigned. It stopped for a few minutes while one young man hit another for getting 
fresh with his girl while dancing. The H.D.O. soon ended the fracas. 

About two o’clock, a woman from the apartment on the floor below rang the bell 
and vociferously demanded that this noise stop or that she would call an officer. The 
hostess laughed in her face and slammed the door. Some tenants are impossible! This 
was sufficient however, to call the party to a halt. The spirit—or “spirits” had been 
dying by degrees. Everybody was tired—some had “dates”—others were sleepy— 
while a few wanted to make a cabaret before “curfew hour.” Mrs. Bailey calmly sur- 
veyed a disarranged apartment, and counted her proceeds. 

And so the rent party goes on. In fact, it has been going from bad to worse. 
Harlem copyists of Greenwich Village give them now—for the lark of it. Not always 
is it a safe and sane affair. Too many evils have crept in, professional gamblers, con- 
fidence men, crooks looking for an accomplice for ‘the night, threats of fights with 
revolvers and razors drawn—any or all of these things may appear in one party. You 
are seldom certain of your patrons. However, one entrepreneur is always certain of 
her guests. She invites only members of the Street Cleaning Department and their 
friends. She extends the invitation Viva Voce from the front window of her apart- 
ment. The occupant in the apartment below her once complained to the court of 
the noise in the course of her parties. The court advised that if the noise were too 
great she should move. She remained. 

At the same time, there may be tragedies. The New York Age carried an edi- 
torial sometime ago on a “Rent Party Tragedy.” At this affair one woman killed 
another woman about a third member of the species. The editorial states in part: 

“One of these rent parties a few weeks ago was the scene of a tragic 
crime in which one jealous woman cut the throat of another, because the 
two were rivals for the affections of a third woman. The whole situation 
was on a par with the recent Broadway play, imported from Paris, al- 
though the underworld tragedy took place in this locality,—In the mean- 


148 EBONY “AND “1 OPAZ 


time, the combination of bad gin, jealous women, a carving knife, and a 
rent party is dangerous to the health of all concerned.” 

Nowadays, no one knows whether or not one is attending a bonafide rent party. 
The party today may be fostered by the Tenants Protective Association, or the Imperial 
Scale of Itinerant Musicians, or the Society for the Relief of Ostracized Bootleggers. 
Yes, all of these foster parties, though the name is one of fancy. Musicians and Boot- 
leggers have to live as well as the average tenant, and if they can combine their 
efforts on a business proposition, the status of both may be improved. 

It has become in some quarters, a highly commercial affair. With the increased 
overhead expenses—printing of tickets, hiring the Home Defense Officer, renting 
chairs, hiring the musicians—-one has to make the venture pay. 

But the rent parties have not been so frequent of late. Harlem’s new dance halls 
with their lavish entertainment, double orchestra, and “sixteen hours of continuous 
dancing”, with easy chairs and refreshments available are ruining the business. They 
who continue in this venture of pleasure and business are working on a very close 
margin both socially and economically, when one adds the complexity illustrated by 
the following incident: 

A nine year old boy gazed up from the street to his home on the “top floor, front, 
East side” of a tenement on West 134th Street about eleven thirty on a Friday night. 
He waited until the music stopped and cried, “Ma! Ma! I’m sleepy. Can I come in 
now2” To which a male voice, the owner of which had thrust his head out of the 
window, replied—“Your ma says to go to the Midnight Show, and she’ll come after 
you. Here’s four bits. She says the party’s just got going good.” 


SONNET TO A NEGRO IN HARLEM 
By HELENE JOHNSON 


You are disdainful and magnificent— 

Your perfect body and your pompous gatt, 

Your dark eyes flashing sullenly with hate, 

Small wonder that you are incompetent 

To imitate those whom you so despise— 

Your shoulders towering high above the throng, 
Your head thrown back in rich, barbaric song, 
Palm trees and mangoes stretched before your eyes. 
Let others toil and sweat for labor’s sake 

And wring from grasping hands their meed of gold. 
Why urge ahead your superciltous feet? 

Scorn will efface each footprint that you make. 

I love your laughter arrogant and bold. 

You are too splendid for this city street! 


TOKENS 


By GweEnbDo.Lyn B. BENNETT 


= 1GH on the bluff of Saint Cloud stands 


tinel of Seraigne ... Seraigne with its 
crazy houses and _ aimless _ streets, 

a4} scrambling at the foot of Saint Cloud’s 
immense immutability. Row on row the bricks of 
the hospital take dispassionate account of lives lost 
or found. It is always as though the gay, little town 
of Seraigne were thumbing its nose at Saint Cloud 
with its famous Merlin Hospital where life is held 
in a test-tube, a thing to be caught or lost by a drop 
or two of this or a pellet of that. And past the 
rustic stupidity of Seraigne’s gaiety lies the wanton 
unconcern of the Seine. he Seine... mute river of 
sorrows... grim concealer of forgotten secrets... 
endlessly flowing ... touching the edges of life... 
moving purposefully along with a grey disdain for 
the empty, foolish gaiety of Seraigne or the benign 
dignity of Merlin Hospital, high on the warm cliffs 
of Saint Cloud. 


A trim nurse had drawn Jenks Barnett’s chair out 
onto one of the balconies that over-looked the Seine. 
Listlessly, aimlessly he turned his thoughts to first 
one aspect and then another of the Seine, Merlin 
Hospital, the cliffs of Saint Cloud, Seraigne.. . 
over and again... the Seine, Merlin Hospital, the 
Siisees Orns, oallits...7 cloud +..7silly, little 
Seraigne. It was a better way—that Seine business. 
Just swallow up life and sorrow and sadness .. . 
don’t bother about the poor fools who are neither 
dead nor alive... just hanging on to the merest 
threads of existence... coughing out one’s heart and 
yet somehow still keeping heart. Purposeless thoughts 
these as one just as purposelessly fingers the blanket 
that covers one’s emaciated, almost lifeless legs. But 
the Seine goes on, and Seraigne continues to be hap- 
py, and the pain in one’s chest grows no easier. 


It so happened that at this particular time there 
were a number of colored patients at the Merlin 
Hospital. Most of them were musicians who had 
remained in Paris after the World War. ‘Two of 
them had come to London and thence to Paris with 
Will Marion Cook in the Negro entertainer’s hey- 
day. Jenks was one of these. He had been a singer 
in those days. His voice was now spoken of in the 
hushed tones one uses when speaking of the dead. 
He had cherished great plans for himself in those 
days and no one dared hope otherwise, so rare was 
his voice in range and quality. hat was all changed 
BOWaeress 


Merlin Hospital had won nation-wide fame as a 
haven for patients suffering from tuberculosis. An 


the Merlin Hospital, immaculate sen- + 


able staff of doctors and nurses administered daily 
hope of recovery to broken bodies or perhaps kindly, 
although inadequate, solace to those whose cases 
were hopeless. Jenks Barnett had been there five 
weeks. His case was one of the hopeless ones. 
The tale of his being there did not take long in the 
telling. Shortly after the success of Cook’s orches- 
tra with its inimitable ‘singing trombonist” Tollie 
had come—Tollie Saunders with her golden voice 
and lush laughter. From the very first she and 
Jenks had hit it off well together. It was not long 
before he was inextricably enmeshed in the wonder 
of her voice and the warm sweetness of her body. 
Dinner at Les Acacias... for Tollie...a hat for 
her lovely head . . . that dress in Chanal’s window 

. . she wanted one of those large opal rings... 
long nights of madness under the charm of her flute- 
sweet voice. His work began to suffer. Soon he 
was dismissed from the orchestra. Singing soirees 
didn’t pay too well. And then one day before the 
pinch of poverty came Tollie had left him, taking 
with her all the pretty things he had given her. . 
leaving no farewell . . . her chance had come to sing 
in an American production and she had gone. No 
word of their plan to startle the singing world with 
their combined talents; no hint of regret that she 
was leaving... just gone. Three nights on a gor- 
geous drunk and he had awakened to find himself in 
a dingy, damp Parisian jail with a terrific pain in his 
back . . . eighteen days in which he moved from one 
prison-house to another . . . sunshine and air again 
when his friends had finally found him and arranged 
for his release . . . sunshine lasts but a short time in 
Paris... endless days of splashing through the Paris 
rain in search of a job... always that pain between 
his shoulder-blades . . . then night upon night of 
blowing a trombone in a stuffy little Boite de Nuit 
during which time he forgot the pain in his back: . . 
and drink .. . incessant drink . . . one more drink 
with the fellows . . . and after the job cards and 
more drink. One came to Merlin after one had been 
to the American Hospital. One came to Merlin after 
one had been to every other hospital round about 
Paris. It does not take long to become accustomed 
to the turning knife in one’s chest. It is good for a 
hopeless case to watch the uncurbed forgetfulness of 
the Seine. 

Spring had sent ahead its perfume this day. It 
was as though the early March air were powdered 
with the pollen of many unborn flowers. A haze 
settled itself in the air and on the breast of the river. 
Jenks forgot for a moment the relentless ache in his 
bosom and breathed deeply in sheer satisfaction. In 


149 


150 EBON Yen GO PAs 


the very midst of this gesture of aliveness the tool of 
death, lodged in his lung, gave a wrench. A hacking 
cough rose in his throat and then seemed to become 
stuck there. His great, gaunt frame was shaken in 
a paroxysm of pain. ‘Lhe fit of stifled coughing 
over, his head teil back upon the pillow. A nurse 
hurried to his side. ‘Gquess you'd better go in now. 
I told you not to move around.” 


With quick, efficient hands she tucked the cover 
more closely about his legs, lowered the back ot the 
invalid chair in which he was sitting, and pushed 
him caretully back into the hospital. As his chair 
was rolled through the ward it was as though he 
were running the gamut of scorn. Jenks was not a fav- 
orite at the hospital by any stretch of the imagination. 
Few of the patients there had escaped the lash of his 
tongue. Sour at life and the raw deal it had dealt 
him, he now turned his attention to venting his 
spume on those about him. Nurses, doctors, order- 
lies, fellow-patients, persistent friends .. . all shared 
alike the blasphemy of his words. Even Bill Jack- 
son, the one friend who continued to brave the sting 
of his vile tongue, was not spared. Bill had known 
him and loved him before ‘Lollie came. It was in 
this memory that he wrapped himself when Jenks 
was most unbearable. He accused Bill of stealing 
his money when he asked him to bring him some- 
thing from the city... .Vhere had been many who 
had tried to make Jenks’ last days easier but one by 
one they had begun to stay away until now there 
was only Bull left. Little wonder the other patients 
in the hospital heaped invective upon him as he 
passed. 


So thin he was as he lay beneath the covers of the 
bed that his knees and chest made scarcely percep- 
tible mounds in the smooth whiteness of the bed. 
The brown of his face had taken on the color of 
dried mud. Great seams folded themselves in his 
cheeks. “here he lay, the rotting hulk of what he 
had once been. He had sent for Bill . . . these 
waiting moments were so long! 


“Hi there, Jenks” ... it was Bill’s cheery voice 
... ‘thought you’d be outside.” 

“Can’t go out no more. Nearly kicked off the 
other day.” 

“Thas all right... you’ll come around all right.” 

“For God sakes cut it out. I know I’m done for. 
You know it, too, damn it all.” 

“Come on now, fella, be your age. You can’t 
last long if you get yourself all worked up. Take 
it easy.” 

“Oh I get so damned sick of the whole business 
I wish I would hurry up and die. But whose busi- 
ness is that but mine... got somethin’ to tell you.” 

“Shoot.” 

“See I’m dyin’... get me. “They keep stickin’ 
that needle in me but I know damn well I’m dyin’. 
Now what I want you to do is this. . . I wrote a 
letter to Tollie when I first came here . . . it’s in 
her picture in my suit-case .. . you know that silver 
frame. Well when I die I want you to give it to 


her, if it’s a thousand years from now... just a 
token of the time when we were in love. Don’t 
forget it. Then you remember that French kid 
that used to be on the ward downstairs .. . she al- 
ways liked that radium clock of mine. She’s been 
transferred to the Gerboux Sanitarium . . . almost 
well now. I think they said she would be out in a 
year. Good kid . .. used to climb up here every 
afternoon ... stairs sort of wore her out, too. Give 
her my clock and tell her I hope she lives to be well 
and strong ’cause I never’ll make it. God, she was 
an angel if ever there was one . . . she used to sit 
there on that chair where you're sittin’ now and just 
look at me and say how she wished she could die in 
my place cause I was such a big man... and could 
sing so. ... I believe she’d like to have something to 
remember me by. And, Bill, you take... that... 
mmmghgummmm... mmm... .” 

That strangling cough rose in his throat. His 
eyes, always cruel, seemed to look out softly at Bill. 
A nurse hurried swiftly into the room and injected 
a hypodermic needle into his arm. A tremor went 
through his body. His eye-lids half closed .. . he 
slept. 


The days dragged out in one week after another. 
Jenks lingered on like the days. Outside the Seine 
flowed endlessly on unhindered and free. It was all 
so futile and strange .. . waiting this way. 

June had laid her warm mouth upon the face of 
the earth. With soft languor the sun slid tenderly 
over the cliffs of Saint Cloud .. . even tenderly over 
the grey bricks of Merlin Hospital. Jenks had 
raged so about not being allowed to lie on the bal- 
cony that at last the hospital authorities had re- 
lented . . . there was such a short time left for him 
anyway ... he might as well have what he wanted 

. this was the first day that had been warm 
enough. As he lay there he looked out across the 
cliffs, past the little town of Seraigne, out past the 
Seine*) 2-5 Ona on! = 2 ae wimpnuinem tom lite 

. conversant with death . . . on to the great 
simplicities. He got to thinking of when he was a 
boy . . . the songs he used to sing . . . he almost 
thought he’d try to sing now . .. what did it matter 
if he got another coughing spell . . . but then the 
nurses would all be in a flurry. Nice to be out here 
once more looking at the Seine and the world where 
people lived and breathed. 

Bill sighed as he placed the little clock on the 
mantle-piece. Funny world, this! The French 
girl had died in late May. He had better not tell 
Jenks... it might upset him. No-o-ope better just 
keep the clock here. Funny how the first kind thing 
Jenks had done for anybody since Tollie left him 
should be done for a person who was dead. = 

High on the bluff of Saint Cloud stands the Mer- 
lin Hospital, immaculate sentinel of Seraigne . 
with its crazy houses and aimless streets, scrambling 
at the foot of Saint Cloud’s immense immutability. 
Row on row the bricks of the hospital take dispas- 
sionate account of lives lost or found. 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 


A PAGE OF UNDERGRADUATE VERSE 


SIGNS OF SPRING 
By HERBERT PICKETT 
Tougaloo College 
One day, the last of winter, 
It was warm as any spring— 
I sat in my room, on Sunday, 


And heard the bluebirds sing. 
The buds had begun swelling, 


And the peach trees were in bloom; 
I could not but feel happy, 
And forget the winter’s gloom. 


It was during silent hour 

When I saw a cloud appear, 

But the drops were soft and gentle— 
A sign that spring was near. 


It was after silent hour, 

After the shower of rain, 

That the last sign came—white trousers— 
When we went to see the train! 


THE SOUDAN 
By CLARENCE F. BuysoNn 
Cleveland College of Western Reserve University 

The brooding, sullen forest nights are filled 
With varied sights and smells. The purple dusk 
Of shaded jungle paths, where Njega killed 
Of oily, bubbling slime, the Lemur’s cry, 
A wild crescendo, then a baffling shriek 
And dined, ts thick with sounds: the reeking musk 
Of sluggish snakes beside a stagnant creek 
That dies away; a snail’s sepulchral sigh 
Of endless woe; a leopard’s coughing roar- 
Above the tangled skein, the monotone 
Of pounding surf against a hostile shore; 
The stench from dripping mangrove roots, the groan, 
Below the drifting musts, of fetid mud 
Where new life stirs in old life’s stagnant blood. 


NOTE:—Nijega, in the Benga dialect, means leopard. It is pronounced Njega or 
Nega, i.e. N—yeaga. A giant snail in the French Soudan gives that peculiar remorseful 
sigh, which is heard only at night. 

Note B:—That Njega is pronounced with two syllables, 


DISILLUSION 
By LILLIAN BROWN 
Tougaloo College 
In a far-away wood there lived two monkeys . . 
They went to town on two old grey donkeys .. . 
But when they saw what we call “men,” 
They decided to go home again. 


151 


152 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


THE RETURN 


By ARNA BONTEMPS 


I 


Once more, listening to the wind and rain, 

Once more, you and I, and above the hurting sound 
Of these comes back the throbbing of remembered rain, 
Treasured rain falling on dark ground. 

Once more, huddling birds upon the leaves 

And summer trembling on a withered vine. 

And once more, returning out of pain, 

The friendly ghost that was your love and mine. 


II 


The throb of rain is the throb of muffled drums; 
Darkness brings the jungle to our room. 
Darkness hangs our room with pendulums 

Of vine and in the gathering gloom 

Our walls recede into a denseness of 
Surrounding trees. This is a night of love 
Retained from those lost nights our fathers slept 
In huts; this is a night that cannot die. 

Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept 
And tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky. 


Ii 


Lhe downpour ceases. 

Let us go back, you and I, and dance 

Once more upon the glimmering leaves 

And as the throbbing of drums increases 

Shake the grass and the drippimg boughs of trees. 
A ary wind stirs the palm; the old tree grieves. 
Lime has charged the years and they have returned. 
Lhen let us dance by metal waters burned 

With gold of moon, let us dance 

With naked feet beneath the young spice trees. 
W hat was that light, that radiance 

On your face?—something I saw when first 
You passed beneath the jungle tapestries? 

A moment we pause to quench our thirst 
Kneeling at the water’s edge, the gleam 

Upon your face is plain; you have wanted this, 
Oh let us go back and search the tangled dream 
And as the muffled-drum-beats throb and miss 
-Remember again how. early darkness comes 

To dreams and silence to the drums. 


IV 


Let us go back into the dusk again, 

Slow and sad-like following the track 

Of blown leaves and cool white rain 

Into the old grey dreams; let us go back. 

Our walls close about us, we lie and listen 

To the noise of the street, the storm and the driven birds. 
A question shapes your lips, your eyes glisten 

Retaining tears, but there are no more words. 


I— 


By Brenna Ray Moryck 


‘ gy 4 
srs 


) 
/p 


HEN I was a very little girl, a strange 
and unaccountable idea persisted with 
me that I wanted to belong to the 
aristocrats of the earth. Psychologists 
would explain this complex by refer- 
ring 10 we African kings and queens who loom so 
frequently on the horizon nowadays as the direct 
forbears of every Negro who achieves, and of many 
who aspire to achieve, but my mother offers a more 
physical and intimate reason. She spent the lovely 
Spring months preceding my birth in a serene and 
exclusive country seat on a tiny farm adjoining a 

“magnificent estate, where the beautiful titled Eng- 
lish woman for whom I was subsequently named, 
and who was graciously pleased to form an attach- 
ment for my mother and an interest in my ap- 
proaching advent was visiting. 

Very early, I began to associate aristocracy with 
flat-heeled, square-toed shoes, in a day when most 
children’s stubby feet were being sacrificed to the 
false grace of a pointed toe and ordinary shops re- 
fused to display even small children’s boots without 
heels; with short white socks when a mistaken mod- 
esty bade mothers cover their small daughters’ legs 
in long, black stockings; clean finger-nails when it 
was the vogue to cry “let children be children” 
(meaning let them be pigs) ; glistening teeth, free 
from food and film before the alarming days of 
“one in every five will have it”; loosely hanging, 
unberibboned locks when two or four tight braids, 
according to the texture of the hair, flamboyantly 
decorated with huge, bright-colored bows at the 
nape of the neck were the vogue; and severely tai- 
lored outer play garments, mostly dark blue, when 
little girls self-consciously appeared on sleds or 
skates bedecked in last year’s finery, and bearskin, 
crushed plush and velvet betokened the style. 

Looking at the children thus accoutred and then 
examining myself by careful scrutiny, I perceived a 
striking similarity. So elated was I by this discov- 
ery of homogeneity that I entirely forgot to note 
the difference in the color of our skins. I was so 
happy in just being a little girl of the sort I admired 
I neglected to remember that I was colored. 

Something happened to me then,—something so 
deeply satisfying, so limitless in its beneficence, so 
far-reaching in its results, that I set down details 
here cognizant of hazarding charges of snobbery. 
It was as if I had been slipped for all times into an 
impregnable suit of armor with which to shut in 
after years all subsequent buffetings of the world. 
No curious stares, no disapproving comments, nor 
the starkest criticism in my presence of my wise 


mother’s extraordinary taste could shake my equa- 
nimity or self-satisfaction. ‘The claim is made, I 
know, that we see life in retrospect through rose- 
colored glass, but the actual unembellished fact is 
that I—a Negro by birth,—a very small girl by 
years,—began my battle with a hostile, Caucasian- 
dominated life outside the home-nest, as a happy, 
self-assured, young being. 

Later years soon dimmed the illusion that the 
symbol of aristocracy is outward dress and appear- 
ance—that it is even that soft-mannered or ar- 
rogant veneer which so often deceives,—in fact that 
it is anything but the serenity and strength of mind 
which come from a consciousness of clear vision, 
straight thinking and a right evaluation of every 
detail of life’s complexity—not blue-blood but a 
sterling heritage,—a taste for the fine and the beau- 
tiful,—courage and fineness; not wealth in dollars 
and cents, though to keep high our self-set stand- 
ards today, we must have money and plenty of it or 
trail in the dust of unfulfillment a goodly portion 
of our splendid desires,—not money,—but riches,— 
a keen and open mind,—a fertile brain, a hungry 
intellect,—a sane and wholesome outlook on life,— 
joy in little things,—the gift to love and love 
abundantly ;—not suavity,—correct manners, soft- 
voiced covering of an empty or dishonest heart, nor 
yet hauteur,—smug self-esteem through bending 
heads which might look up in competition—but 
gentility,—that kindness, consideration, forbear- 
ance, tolerance, magnanimity and helpfulness to 
every living thing which betoken true refinement,— 
but my firmly established belief that I could meas- 
ure with earth’s elite never vanished. 

As a Negro, I came to learn that I belonged to a 
despised group,—a group hailed everywhere by 
every ordinary white child as “‘niggers” or “darkies” 
—a practice much more common during my child- 
hood even in the north than it is today slightly 
south of the Mason-Dixon line; that I must suffer 
impertinent and malicious stares at school every 
time “Old Black Joe” or “Swanee River” were 
sung unless I happened to be in the class of a child- 
lover,—and thank God there were a number to 
whom I now offer gratitude, who smilingly chose 
the morning songs themselves and never seemed to 
remember the existence of those tunes; that I must 
hand over the set of tea-dishes fallen to my lot as an 
impartial or blind Santa Claus’s gift from a Caucas- 
ian Baptist Sunday School Christmas tree because 
a white infant objected to “that little colored girl” 
having dishes while she had only a book; that I 
must play better basket-ball than any other member 


153 


154 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


of the team to keep my place on it as representative 
of my high school; that I must always be in com- 
pany with a certain lovely Caucasian in order to 
drink soda or eat luncheon in certain exclusive 
shops or bathe at certain beaches; that the privilege 
of touring the beautiful southern part of “the land 
of the free and home of the brave” must be fore- 
gone because of the insufferable inconveniences 
maintained by discrimination; that colleges catered 
to prejudice, and all learned people were not cul- 
tured; that some were cats and brutes and boors; 
that men and women, too, of warped mind and 
narrow sympathies often dominated the earth,—at 
least a considerable portion of it, and bent to their 
evil wills their brothers less fortunate because 
cursed with a black skin; that my people were 
burned alive and seldom a voice raised in protest, 
yet gladly saluted the flag which refused them pro- 
tection, and in time of war, laid down their lives 
for a country in which they had lived on suffer- 
ance; that “might is often right” so far as exploita- 
tion of black men is concerned, and that justice is 
the. white man’s meed alone. I could not help it. 
It was life. 

Yet, for every ill, life offers compensation. Being 
a Negro is sweet at times. It carries with it 
privileges which cannot but warm the heart of the 
most cynical and callous. The bitter may denounce 
friendly overtures as patronage, asking only a fair 
chance to make their mark according to their abili- 
ties, but this is a very partial old world after all,_— 
a world in which the scales for reward and punish- 
ment are seldom equal. We rise,—too often, per- 
haps,—on personal favor,—not only Negroes, but 
all people. Since we are of this world, if not with 
it, it seems sensible to rejoice in the kind offices of 
our well-wishers. ‘Look not a gift horse in the 
mouth.” 

I soon learned that although a representative 
number of patched up and hungry-looking little 
plebeians liked to call “Nigger, nigger, never die, 
black face and shiny eye,” and a few sturdy, rosy- 
cheeked ones, too, every time I passed by, the ma- 
jority of the children who came from big, com- 
fortable-looking homes,—even elegant houses on 
quiet streets—(for I went to the public school in a 
day when intelligent and far-sighted parents had 
not yet felt the “menace of socialization” or doubted 
the efficacy of mass training for the individual, and 
the earlier popularity of the private school and 
private tutor was on the wane)—were forever 
seeking me out to make up their ring or complete 
their team or play their games, and were constantly 
inviting me home to luncheon “because I want 
Mama to see you,” (Mama being one of those 
““wholesale-generalizationed” tongued ladies who 
had pronounced sentence on all colored children as 
being rough, dirty, and foul-minded). 

Remember, please, that I was very young and 
very human. I enjoyed it all. Preening myself 
on my desirability as “such a ovely little colored 
girl,” I soon let it be known in certain “white 


trash” enemy groups that I was not allowed to 
associate with common children! And when I 
went home at his invitation with my first beau,—an 
adorable eight-year-old named Leslie, who I might 
wish even now could read these lines,—and_ his 
family, all gathered on the large veranda of his 
home to receive his fair lady burst into laughter 
and gurgled, “Why she’s colored,” I thought they 
were delighted to find me different! 

Little prig—little fool! What does it matter,— 
which or both—so I was happy. Is it not every 
child’s right to be happy? I was happy. 

Again, the earmarks of my Negro blood won me 
a coveted position as alto in a duet with a beautiful 
little Jewish soprano who has since become na- 
tionally known. Nearly all the class entered the 
competition, but when, by elimination, only three 
candidates were left, there was such bitterness and 
weeping and wailing between the two little white 
girls desirous of singing ““The Miller of the Dee” 
with this exquisite, divine-voiced doll, that the 
teachers cut short all controversy with the naive 
announcement, “If we let the little colored girl win, 
the others won’t feel so badly.” “Beauty and the 
Jacobin!” How times have changed! 

My high school career was practically free of all 
race consciousness, due, I am now positive to the 
absolute impartiality and unbiased principles of the 
head, a man of genial character but inflexible rule, 
and a corps of, for the most part, broad-minded, 
tolerant teachers who very adroitly never per- 
mitted the question of color and race superiority or 
inferiority to crop up. I was just one of the many, 
a single pupil in a classical school ministering to a 
heterogeneous group of hundreds of raw young 
people, making my mark and claiming notice ac- 
cording to my special talents, solely. Only when 
I made the basket-ball team was I conscious that 
my efforts alone had been superior to every other 
member’s and yet I was last to be recognized. But 
who shall say the extra endeavor a Negro must 
always put forth in competition with white men 
does not rebound to his own benefit and credit? 
Was I not the better player on the court because 
of longer and more skillful practice before making 
the team? 

Quite apart, however, from my school affiliations, 
there was another larger and more beautiful life 
opened to me, solely because I was a Negro. I may 
or may not have had an arresting personality, 1 may 
or may not have been well-bred, well-dressed, gen- 
erally well-appearing. The fact remains that had 
I not been distinctly a member of my own racial 
group, I should never have become a quasi-pro- 
tegée of an exquisite woman on whom the Gods 
had smiled in every way at her birth and on 
through life,—who was graciously pleased to enter- 
tain me in her home, introduce me to her friends 
and take me about everywhere,—not as her hired 
companion nor the daughter or granddaughter of 
some faithful retainer in her father’s or mother’s 
ménage, but as an interesting little colored girl who 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 155 


deserved to see the best that life offered, and who 
because of the barrier of a brown skin must other- 
wise be denied anything but occasional tempting 
glimpses. 

Through her generosity, I tasted a life utterly 
beyond the reach of most Caucasians, tasted it 
under the pleasantest auspices, and therefore came 
to set store on being a Negro as something rare 
and precious, 

The college years did not dispel this assumption. 
Rather, they tended to heighten it. The disap- 
pointments and heart-aches, which every normal 
teen age girl away from home experiences, were not 
due to color prejudice. At my college, Wellesley, 
in my day,—not so very long ago either—the 
authorities permitted no discrimination. The stu- 
dent body, consequently, taking their cue from their 
elders and betters as they always do, consciously or 
unconsciously even today, engaged in no wholesale 
active hostilities. 

There were girls, of course, who tried to be mean 
and hateful,—usually from small towns in the 
north and west,—the southern girls, it is my joy to 
relate, with one lamentable exception—and that 
from the Nation’s capital—were all ladies, and 
though their faces sometimes flamed with protest 
at the new order of relationships they were forced 
to endure, their good breeding never failed and, in 
time they came to be pleasantly civil outside the 
classroom as well as within, some of them even 
achieving a friendliness in senior year and a cor- 
diality at reunions that. was not to have been 
dreamed of in Freshman days, but for the most 
part, everybody wanted to do something kind for 
the one little black girl,—alien in a lively, callous, 
young world of fourteen hundred Caucasians, even 
the villagers to whom intimate contact with a 
Negro, not a_hairdresser or laundress, was a 
privilege. 

Again, it was always those choice spirits who 
roam the world and tread the high places of life 
unfettered by the bonds of public opinion,—either 
the very, very wealthy or the very blue-blooded, or 
the jealous devotee of the true principles of democ- 
racy, eager to put into practice her newly-conned 
theories, who were most generous in their friendli- 
ness and delightful in their overtures. Sadly must 
I observe that it was seldom the orthodox Christian 
recognized by her piety in repeating the prayer for 
all sorts and conditions of men and her lip-service 
to “God created of one blood all nations for to 
dwell upon the face of the earth’ who stepped aside 
from her own interests or widened her circle to in- 
clude me, but then,—she was not missed. 

It was delightful—being a Negro at college. She 
who would decry the kind of satisfaction derived 
therefrom must indeed be a hypocrite or else ab- 
normal. Let her consider the creature who walks 
alone through life, white or black,—friendless, un- 
noticed, uncherished, and reflect that it is a normal 
human being’s craving to be liked. If, for whole- 
some reasons, and certainly there is nothing un- 


wholesome in being a Negro, except in the eyes of 
certain vicious Nordics who seek to make it appear 
so, a person is liked,—what matters all the rest? 

Even today, at a time when the entire attention 
of the white world at large is focused upon the 
Negro, with what intent or ultimate purpose it is 
dificult to forecast; when lynching is increasing, 
prejudice growing, the right to discriminate sus- 
tained on questions of civil right, north and west, 
as well as south, and unfair competition against the 
Negro threatening his economic existence except as 
a peon or pauper,—there is a zest in being a Negro. 

Read the recent editorial comment on a dainty 
brown-skinned, bird-throated comedienne, Florence 
Mills, and take thought of the homage an intelli- 
gent world pays to art irrespective of race or color. 
Sit in capacity-jammed Carnegie Hall and hear the 
delicate exquisite music made by Roland Hayes, and 
know him judged a supreme artist, not of his race 
but of the world. ‘Lhen consider. Have I not 
cause for pride of race? 

There is honey as well as hemlock in the cup of 
every Negro,—sunlight as well as shadow. 


But as a woman, what did I learn? ‘That the 
sun shines on the just and the unjust,—that the 
mountains clap their hands and the morning stars 
sing together? ‘hat the glory of the sunset 
fades into the exquisite dusk of twilight and the 
mid-darkness of night bursts into the glory of the 
dawn? ‘That the green of the tree-leaf turns to a 
magic red and gold and when winter comes, spring 
is not far behind? 

Did I learn this as a woman? Ah, yes, and 
more besides,—that the peace and the beauty of 
earth,—fulfillment,—lie within the mind, embedded 
and enshrouded in an elusive quantity called soul, 
—whose entity now men doubt. Bend the body to 
the rack, confine the intellect to the torture of 
eternal limitations, the soul is away and free,— 
ranging the hills,—roaming the fields, Winging on 
the breeze to an elysium which only God can with- 
draw. The majesty of mountains, the loveliness of 
twilight, the ineffable beauty of sunsets, the rush of 
sparkling waters, the pure calm of the deep woods, 
the mystery of oceans,—starlight, moonlight,—sun- 
light,—vast spaces under the infinite sky are mine, 
—mine because I am a woman,—a human being,—~ 
one of God’s great family for whom He created 
the world and all that therein is. Smiling eyes of 
children,—blue eyes under golden curls as well as 
black eyes in tawny faces are turned toward me. 
Work, play, and that highest opportunity, the op- 
portunity to help and to give, to mother and to 
heal,—are mine. ‘Non ministrari sed ministrare” 
is the radiance of existence. And can I not keep 
company with the greatest minds of the earth for all 
times in my books? 

Life is rich and beautiful to a woman. 

I am a Negro—yes—but I am also a woman. 

“Two men looked out from the prison bars, 

One saw the mud, the other, the stars,” 


A Glorious Company 


By Avutson Davis 


= HERE is an old Negro song in which 
¥]| the band of those destined for Heaven, 
with the prophets and King Jesus, are 
safely transported thither aboard a 
train! This journey by train to their 
last, long station is but an accentuated expression of 
the fascination and mystery which trains hold for 
Negroes of the south. I have often thought that 
the Negro farmhand would lose heart once for all, 
were it not for the daily encouragement he takes 
from the whistle of his favorite locomotives. Tied 
to his plow, under the red, burning sun, or aching 
with the loneliness of the sterile night, he can find 
all his desire for escape, all the courage he lacks in 
the face of the unknown, mingled with his inescap- 
able hopelessness, in the deep-throated, prolonged 
blast of the express-train, like a challenge to un- 
travelled lands, a terrifying cry to his petty town- 
ship. 

A journey by train for no more than three or 
five miles fills the poor Negroes of the south with 
confidence and elation. They are not only holiday- 
makers; they are seekers and adventurers. With 
all their children and world’s gear about them, they 
leave nothing more precious than a squalid, smoke- 
painted shanty, with its empty pig-sty; who knows, 
then, if perchance they may not find a changed life 
in the next town or county, and never return? It 
is pitiable they should not yet have learned they 
have no fair country, and that oppression rides with 
them. Yet, no one who has not had his world 
bounded into less clean and, metaphorical limits 
than those of a nut-shell can understand the hope 
which these, who journey from home, feel at the 
possibility of escape. 

To them, the mere fact of motion suggests new 
independence, and incites their trammeled spirits 
with unbounded enthusiasm. They are rolling, in 
a rolling world, and at every local station exhort 
their friends, from the windows, to join the band. 

“Git on boa’d, little children, 
Dere’s room for many a mo’.” 
is the spirit, if not the letter, of their greeting. 

Aboard, they are all friends, drawn by their 
common adventure. A gambler and_bully-boy 
lavishes his famed courtliness on a withered, old 
sister, brave in her antebellum finery, and falls at 
length into her “revival” plans. I have often no- 
ticed a fine-looking type of old gentleman, whose 
rich, brown skin, and soft, curly hair lend him a 
gentility the Jewish patriarchs lacked. He seems 
destined to encounter some buxom, dark-skinned 
“fancy woman,” who cleverly leads him into his 
favorite discourses on the virtues of renunciation 


156 


and purity. Trained in flattery by her mode of 
life, she sits like a rapt student at her master’s feet. 
And if, by unlucky goodness of heart, she offers 
him a pint of her own home-made ‘“sperrits,”’ 
knowing the indigence of the pure in heart, he will 
feel the simple testimony, and forgive. 

There will be also the irreconcilables, like this 
white-skinned lady from the north. She feels only 
the indignity of the segregated train, and suffers 
from a kind of hyperaesthesia in this crude gather- 
ing of her own people. The odors from their full 
meal of fried chicken—I have seen even the delec- 
table cabbage in lunch-boxes—arouse in her a genu- 
ine hatred of the whole clan; and she would enjoy 
lynching those wayworn sisters who unshoe their 
tortured feet. These black folk from whom she 
shrinks, however, are incorrigibly gentle and courte- 
ous, and seek by persistent attentions to make her 
comfortable,—even to talk with her like a fellow- 
being in a world of trouble. But her thoughts are 
fixed, with bitter longing, on the parlor car. 

And yet, among the Florida tourists, from the 
observation car through the dining and lounging 
cars, down to this truncated segment of the baggage 
car, she would find no wit and smiles to put zest 
in the journey, like these about her. Starvation, 
one’s own ignorance, persecution, hard luck, and 
the way of woman, all are turned into laughter, 
now reckless, and now ultimately philosophic. A 
jet-black woman is laughed at by her equally dark 
escort for spending time and effort to rouge and 
powder ;—and she sees the ridiculous futility of her 
vanity, and laughs more heartily than he! A con- 
sumptive of huge frame jokingly threatens the 
young porter for treading on his feet, and cannot 
laugh without pain. And in one corner, in spite 
of the scowls of the conductor, a one-legged miner 
sings rich harmonies to his guitar, strumming with 
fervent sympathy, Wonder Where’s Dem Hebrew 
Children? That he should look to Palestine two 
thousand years ago for homeless ones to pity! 

More animated and cheerful is the story-teller, 
touched by just enough of the grape,—turned corn 
now in this makeshift world—to inspire him to a 
longer tale of his wanderings. He knows himself 
a romantic protagonist for this young college-boy 
who listens, and carries his adventures farther into 
the hero-world. There, sweet brown girls cherish 
him, or “evil womans” betray him, according to the 
powers of the grape. For the most part, he has 
had Herculean jobs in the mines or on the docks, 
and harder luck with his women than Samson; but 
now that he’s once again “railroading, behind an 
eight-driving engine, with the rails ringing,” his 


EBON Ve AN Ded ORAZ 157 


confidence returns. Tomorrow, nay tonight at the 
end of his fare, he may be hungry and in the park; 
but as he talks now, homelessness and starvation 
are dangers in romance, no more fatal than the 
wounds of the archangels, which bleed ichor, and 
heal forthwith! 


So it is with them all, escaping the weight of 
hardship and persecution by some exhilaration of 
the moment. In an hour now, many will be left 
at their lonely, country station, while the great 
engine burns its fiery trail across the black sky, 
driving on into other lands with happier children. 
But now they are still in a band and confident. 
Their pride and courage are fortified by the swag- 
gers of the porter, for he is one of their own; they 
feel it a strange and hopeful dispensation that he 
should be here to guide them safely in. So they 
roll on into a mystery. 


In the great, city station, this sense of mystery 
becomes at once awful and exhilarating. They 
give porters tips of five cents in a beautiful trance 
of lavishness. The marble under their feet is 
turned to buoyant ether, and the great dome above 


draws their spirits in prayers and hallelujahs. And 
their exhilaration is the keener because against this 
brilliant spectacle, they can see in their mind’s eye 
the alley-shack where they will come into the city’s 
life. Now they feel only that here is a journey 
finished in a new and better land, full of light and 
splendor. 

They have not gone this journey of physical 
hardship and spiritual cramping without the 
strength of hope and faith. This faith they will 
not lose in the newer lands to which they must 
eventually come, for it is revived daily by the barest 
victory over disease and poverty, and these will 
travel with them, to chasten. They go also with 
humility, which we will not think meanness of 
spirit, until we have known the daily bitterness of 
being forced to resign hope and manhood. And if 
they are humble, having faith in their journey, and 
courage still to face it with laughter and friendli- 
ness, perhaps they may be allowed to go in their 
stocking-feet, at ease over their dinner of cabbage, 
until they shall understand the ways of our fine 
lady, and some day, perchance, even of the Florida 
tourists. 


A STUDENT I KNOW 
By JONATHAN H. Brooks 


He mocks the God invisible 
To whom his mother prays; 

“What stands on faith for proof ts built 
On shifting sands,” he says. 


To him life ts a heartless game: 
“I grapple, fight, defy,” 

He says: “the world is his who wins; 
The losers, let them dte.” 


Ah, greenhorn-pilgrim, duped by thieves 
And left to writhe in dirt 

Beside the way to Jericho— 

Wounded, robbed—and hurt! 


—AND I PASSED BY 


By JOSEPH MAREE ANDREW 


USED to take so much of Life for granted. Enough to eat—enough | 
iG sleep—enough rest—not too much to do—the schools I wanted—the 
&) things I wanted—friends with the things they wanted. 

ZA I had even been pit-pat too. Took the Natural-Trickery-of-the- 
<\ White-man to be an indelible streak in the breed. An indelible streak 
We that only called for enough distrust on my own part to get along. 

take so much of Life for granted. But once the Wing—the WING of 
Death—swept across my home. Swept across my home twice in two short years. 

It swept twice. It made sure that all of my heart was beneath the two pieces of 
the World that men call graves. 

I used to take so much of Life for granted. When the Wing had swept clean the 
halls of my home, people came and talked. Came to talk, to tell me how to face two 
spaces that were empty forever. Empty spaces that ached. Then the talk and the 
people flowed back around me like blood from around a wound. 

The Empty Spaces ached. I was the flesh around the wound—the Empty Spaces, 
the wound. 

I cried to high Heaven—“Is God really good—r” 

But I should have bowed and cried low—“Yet-somehow—God is really good.” 

T had taken too much for granted, you see. The Wing swept clean. It swept away 
the scales from my eyes, too. I began to soften. 

—Soft, you will see what I mean. 

The scales left my eyes. I decided I could again see and talk once more without 
dropping out of things into my own abyss. 

Thus I set out on a winter’s evening with a friend to dinner. Cold air pooled 
around us as we stepped out of the door. 

I took a deep sniff—drew in as much as I could—pressed my cheeks deeper in 
the fur around me—appreciated my friend’s well clad appearance—sniffed her per- 
fume—and let my pulse race ahead to the click of our heels on the pavement. 

Nothing troubled us. Absolutely nothing at all. School and its work lay behind 
us. A home we could really enjoy lay ahead. 

We pattered. Light talk pattered with our heels. 

“Lets walk-all the way.” I had to skip a step as I said. It was so good to be 
freely alive. 

“T want to walk for once,” replied the girl beside me. 

The hill mounted. Our blood pounded. Our heels clicked. Our tongues raced 
I could breathe deeply and I could only know it was cold by the whiffs of the air 
across my nose (which is strangely tender in winter). 

The hill veered sharply. We would either have to prolong the jaunt or takera 
short cut. 

“Are you afraid to cut through—Street? asked my companion. She mentioned a 
street that is not supposed to be safe after dark. 

It has sad houses, sad stores in every available space, and people, white and colored. 
up and down it. It is sad. The white and colored people fight pitched battles and 
hate each other as if each blamed the other for being there. 

“No! of course I am not afraid.” My pulse made me say that. 


158 


EBONY AND TOPAZ 159 


We struck out. I really was a bit afraid. That made my pulses race harder. We 
crossed an intersection. I stumbled over the car tracks and hopped the curb. Then 
I turned to look back. ze 

“Not buttered fingers but buttered toes,” I explained. 

The other girl did not answer. She looked beyond me. I turned the other way 
to look too. 

Something soft brushed against me. A girl—slender, dead-white—in a light blue 
dress with a low round neck—and with bed-room slippers on her feet—staggered 
against me. 

I welched away. She fell in a sort of confusion against the building behind us. 
The street light lay full in her face. Her eyes were half closed, her mouth slightly 
opened. 


Something made me catch hold of my throat. The girl staggered and stumbled. 
She went around the corner. 

“Oh—.” It sounded futile even to me, but I said it. We both stared at one 
another. I rambled on: “She did not have a coat!” I started toward the corner. 
“She is sick!” 

“You'd better let that cracker alone! You do not know this place! This is— 
Street!” cried the girl with me. 

I wavered. This was —Street. 


That sent us on up the hill. A weight fell on me. The sidewalk made me stumble. 
I felt burdened. I was stumbling. 


I sat at the table. Food, talk, good fellowship flowed around me, bathed me 
about. 

“Come to and answer my question!” some one said beside me. 

“Mustn’t let yourself worry, my dear,” the hostess whispered in the kindly warmth 
of motherly middle age. | 

Tears wavered in my eyes. She thought I was rooting back. 

Digging beneath my wound. Filling my Empty Spaces with dreams that hurt. 
But— 

—Cold. A blue voile dress. Bed room slippers. Eyes half-opened. But she 
was white. She would have pushed me away if I had touched her and she had seen my 
brown flesh. 

What did I have to do with it? She would have spat in my face. 

Still a white face swam before me. It swam between me and my plate. A pale 
blue voile dress. I only knew it was cold by the touch of wind across my face.— 

I tried to blot it out then. I tasted food. Tasted ideas. Talked. Listened. Gave 
in talk. Shut it out. 

—Shut out the cry within me. Shut out the cry—What had I to do with it? What 
had I to do with it? 

Played. Played the piano to shut it out. 

“You always play so beautifully for me!” the hostess purred. 

Beautifully for her! I was trying to send out the warmth my fingers should 
have had to a thin pale body in a blue voile dress. Trying to make myself hard. 
Playing down the fight that was within me. 

—You should have gone back! 

What had I to do with the— 

With thee! Jesus of Nazareth— 

I was too soft. It was the Empty Spaces that made me soft. People forget things 
that have nothing to do with them, why could not I? Why could I not let it alone? 

Empty Spaces. She was sick. The dress was blue voile.— 

A room full of warmth and easy pleasant lovable folk. 


160 EBONY AND TOPAZ 


The room was warm—bare arms—Empty Spaces. She would leave a space 
empty. Someone else would become the Flesh-Around—the Wound. Aching around 
an Empty Space. Empty. Aching.— 

And I had gone up the hill. 

Jesus of Nazareth! What had I to do with Theer— 

I took my hands off the keys and laid one quickly over my lips. 

“Does your tooth ache?” someone queried behind me. 

I had to leave then. 

Someone else was talking in the room next to me as I put on my hat. “She takes 
her sorrow too hard. She must give them up!” 

I knew they meant me—that was it. I thought of myself so much—so much for 
granted—that everyone knew I only thought of Things as they related to me. 

—Always me. I had not gone back. She hated my kind. I would not let her 
“Spit in my face.” Me— 

Sometimes I think I see her white face and feel her brush by me. 

What had I to do with Thee, Jesus of Nazarethr 

God forgive me. Forgive me for letting You stumble by me—alone.— In a thin 
white body this time; into the dark—in a dress that was no dress—no shoes—into the 
dark of a winter night. : 

Forgive me for letting hate send me up the hill while You went down. 

I wonder where You went thenr 

I do not know why I did not go back to You. Today I cannot say why. Someday, 

though, God, I shall have to tell You why. 


WHO’S WHO 


WA Bs Society of Graphic Arts; now on art fellowship at the Barnes Foun- 
Wy ‘e) dation. Arthur Fauset won the OPPORTUNITY first prize with his 
aA WY short story “Symphonesque,” reprinted in O’Brien’s and the O’ Henry 
/ SG SS Memorial Awards volumes, author of “For Freedom.” Paul Green, 
professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina has written many plays of 
Negro life. His “In Abraham’s Bosom,” was awarded last year’s Pulitzer Prize. John 
Matheus is a professor of Romance Languages at West Virginia Collegiate Institute 
and an OPPORTUNITY and Crisis short story prize winner. 

Countee Cullen has published two volumes of his own poems “Color” and “Copper 
Sun” and an anthology of the younger Negro poets—“Caroling Dusk.” Charles 
Cullen is an artist who has recently found a new enthusiasm in drawings of Negro 
characters—he illustrated “Copper Sun” and “The Ballad of the Brown Girl.” 
Julia Peterkin is the author of “Green Thursday” and “Black April,” two of the 
foremost books about Negroes. Zora Neale Hurston has written short stories and 
plays and more recently has turned to the study of Negro folklore. Guy B. Johnson 
is a co-author of “The Negro and His Songs.” He is at the University of INorth 
Carolina. John Davis took his Master’s Degree at Harvard last year and is 
now publicity director for Fisk University. Gwendolyn Bennett has taught art at 
Howard, and is now on an art fellowship at the Barnes Foundation and a columnist for 
OPPORTUNITY. Nathan Ben Young is an attorney in St. Louis. He once lived in 
Birmingham. Edna Worthley Underwood is a poet, novelist and translator of interna- 
tional reputation, author of The Passion Flower, The Pageant Maker and other 
volumes. 

Arthur A. Schomburg is perhaps the greatest of Negro bibliophiles. His collec- 
tion of rare books was recently turned over to the N. Y. Public Library. Dorothy Scar- 
borough is author of “On the Trail of Negro Folk Songs.” She is a professor of Eng- 
lish at Columbia and has written two novels. Phillis Wheatley was the first Negro 
poet (1753-1784). Dorothy Peterson is a teacher of Spanish in the New York Public 
Schools. Professor Ellsworth Faris is the head of the Department of Sociology at the 
University of Chicago and Eugene Kinckle Jones is Executive Secretary of the Na- 
tional Urban League. Dr. E. B. Reuter is professor of Sociology at the University 
of Iowa. William Pickens is Field Secretary of the National Association for the 
Advancement of Colored People. Alain Locke is editor of the New Negro. E. 
Franklin Frazier is a young sociologist now preparing for his degree of Doctor of 
Philosophy at the University of Chicago and a frequent contributor to magazines. 
George Schuyler is on the staff of the Messenger and the Pittsburgh Courier and a 
contributor to magazines. Theophilus Lewis is dramatic critic for the Messenger. 
Abram L. Harris is a professor of Economics at Howard University. T. Arnold Hill 
is director of the Department of the Industrial Relations of the National Urban 
League, formerly Executive Secretary of the Chicago Urban League. Richard Bruce 
is a young artist and poet. He is at present filling a role in Porgy. Ira Reid is Indus- 
trial Secretary of the N. Y. Urban League. W. P. Dabney is author of Cincinnati's 
Colored Citizens and editor of the Cincinnati Union a free lance newspaper. Francis 
Holbrook is an artist who has contributed frequently to Opportunity. He lives in 
Brooklyn. 

Brenda Moryck is an OPPORTUNITY and Crisis prize winner for essays and 
short stories. She teaches school in Washington. W.E. Braxton is an artist. He won 
the gold and silver medals offered by Adelphia College, Brooklyn. 


161 


THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 


Organized 1910 Incorporated 1913 


17 MADISON AVENUE 
NEW YORK CITY 


THE NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE is an organization which seeks to improve the relations be- 
tween the races in America. It strives to improve the living and working conditions of the Negro. 


Its special field of operation embraces cities where Negroes reside in large numbers. 


The Executive Boards of the national and of the forty local organizations are made up of white and 
colored people who have caught the vision of social work and believe in justice and fair play in the dealings of 


men with each other. 


The Leagues Program 


It maintains a Department of Research and Investigations with Charles S. Johnson as Director, who also 
edits “OPPORTUNITY” magazine—the official organ of the League. This Department makes thorough 
investigations of social conditions in cities as bases for the League’s practical work. 


As rapidly as practicable committees are organized to further the recommendations growing out of such 
studies and especially to stimulate existing social welfare agencies to take on work for Negroes or to enlarge 
their activities in behalf of their Negro constituents. Occasionally special work for Negroes is organized 
where existing agencies are not willing to assume work for Negroes, or where there are no available facilities 


for meeting these needs. 

The League furthers the training of colored social workers through providing fellowships for colored 
students at schools of social work and providing apprenticeships in the League’s field activities for prospec- 
tive social workers. 


It conducts programs of education among colored and white people for the purpose of stimulating 
greater interest on the part of the general public in social work for colored people. 


The League has a Department of Industrial Relations with T. Arnold Hill as Director. This Depart- 
ment seeks: 


1. To standardize and coordinate the local employment agencies of the League so that exchange of 
snformation and more regular correspondence between them can assure applicants for work more 
efficient and helpful service and employers of labor a more efficient group of employees; 


2. To work directly with large industrial plants both in cities where the League is established and in 
communities removed from such centers to procure larger opportunity for work and for advance- 
ment on the job for Negro workers and to stimulate Negro workers to a fresh determination to 
“make good” on the job so that their future place in industry may be assured ; 


3. To help through available channels of information to ascertain points at which there is need of 
Negro labor and points at which there is an oversupply of Negro labor and to use existing agencies 


of publicity and placement to direct Negro labor to those points where they are most needed and 
where their families will more easily become adjusted. : 

This Department seeks to promote better relations between white and colored workers not through 
activities involving force, but through the orderly development of a feeling of good-will and com- 
radeship. ‘This accomplished would mean the removal of barriers against Negro membership in 


organized labor. 
Officers: 


L. HOLLINGSWORTH WOOD, President EUGENE KINCKLE JONES, Executive Secretary 
LLOYD GARRISON, Treasurer 


Contributions in aid of the League may be made direct to the National Office, 


LIST OF AFFILIATED BRANCHES OF THE 
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 


AKRON, OHIO 


Association for Colored Community Work 


493 Perkins Street 
Mr. Georce W. THompson 


ATLANTA, GEORGIA 


Southern Field Secretary 
239 Auburn Avenue 
Jessz O. THomas 


ATLANTA, GEORGIA 


Atlanta Urban League 
239 Auburn Avenue 


JouHn W. Crawrorp, Exec. Secy. 


BALTIMORE, MARYLAND 


Baltimore Urban League 
521 McMechen Street 
R. M. Moss, Exec. Secy. 


BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 


Boston Urban League 
119 Camden Street 
SAMUEL A. ALLEN, Exec. Secy. 


BROOKLYN, NEW YORK 


Brooklyn Urban League 
105 Fleet Place 
RosertT J. Evzy, Exec. Secy. 


BUFFALO, NEW YORK 


Urban League of Buffalo 
357 William Street 
WiuuiaM L. Evans, Exec. Secy. 


CANTON, OHIO 
Canton Urban League 
819 Liberty Avenue, S. E. 
GERALD E, ALLEN, Exec. Secy. 


CHICAGO, ILLINOIS 
Chicago Urban League 
3032 South Wabash Avenue 
A. L. Foster, Exec. Secy, 


CLEVELAND, OHIO 


The Negro Welfare Association 
2554 East 40th Street 
WILLIAM R. Conners, Exec. Secy. 


COLUMBUS, OHIO 


Columbus Urban League 
681 East Long Street 
N. B. ALLEN, Exec. Secy. 


DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
Detroit Urban League 
1911 St. Antoine Street 
Joun C, Dancy, Exec. Secy. 


ENGLEWOOD, NEW JERSEY 
Englewood League for Social Service 
Among Colored People 
71 Englewood Avenue 
Louis S. Pierce, Exec. Secy. 


KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI 


Community Service Urban League 
1731 Lydia Avenue 
Epwarp S§. Lewis, Exec. Secy. 


LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 


Los Angeles Urban League 
1325 Central Avenue 


Mrs. KaTHERINE J. Barr, Exec. Secy. 


LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY 


Louisville Urban League 
615 W. Walnut Street 
J. M. Racianp, Exec. Secy. 


MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
Milwaukee Urban League 
631 Vliet Street 
James H. Kerns, Exec. Secy. 


MINNEAPOLIS, MINN, 
Minneapolis Urban League 
71 West 7th Street 
St, Paul, Minn. 


MORRISTOWN, NEW JERSEY 
85 Spring Street 
Miss AticE WHITE 


(OVER) 


LIST OF AFFILIATED BRANCHES OF THE 
NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE 


NEW YORK CITY 


New York Urban League 
202 West 136th Street 
James H. Husert, Exec. Secy. 


NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE 


The Public Welfare League 
708 Cedar Street 
Paut F. Mowsray, Exec. Secy. 


NEWARK, NEW JERSEY 


New Jersey Urban League 
212 Bank Street 
Tuomas L. Puryear, Exec. Secy. 


PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 


Armstrong Association of Philadelphia 
1434 Lombard Street 
Wayne L. Hopkins, Exec. Secy. 


PLAINFIELD, NEW JERSEY 


Plainfield Urban League 
1226 Arlington Street 
Mrs. Eva Knicut, President 


PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA 


Pittsburgh Urban League 
518 Wylie Avenue 
Atonzo C. THayER, Exec. Secy. 


RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 
Richmond Urban League 
2 West Marshall Street 
C. L. Winrree, Exec. Secy. 


SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 
St. John’s Institutional Activities 
643 Union Street 
Dr. WitiiaM N. DeBerry, Exec. Secy. 


SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS 


Springfield Urban League 
1610 East Jackson Street 
SAMUEL B. DANLEY, JR., Exec. Secy. 


ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA 


St. Paul Urban League 
71 West 7th Street 
Eimer A, Carter, Exec. Secy. 


ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI 


Urban League of St. Louis 
615 North Jefferson Avenue 
Joun T. Ciark, Exec. Secy. 


TAMPA, FLORIDA 


Tampa Urban League 
1310 Marion Street 
Mr. B. E. Mays, Exec. Secy. 


WATERBURY, CONNECTICUT 
Interdenominational Committee 
81 Pearl Street 
Mrs. Leita T. ALEXANDER 


WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY 


Westfield Urban League 
417 West Broad Street 
Miss IRENE SUMERSET, Exec. Secy. 


HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 
22 Avon Street 


YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO 
Booker T. Washington Settlement 
962 Federal Street 
SULLY JoHNSON, Exec. Secy. 


OPPORTUNITY 


JOURNAL OF NEGRO LIFE 


Published by the National Urban League 
CuHar_es S. JoHNnson, Editor 
CouNTEE CULLEN, Assistant Editor 
Noau D. Tuompson, Business Manager 


$1.50 a year—8 months $1.00 


17 MADISON AVENUE 
NEW YORK 


“One of the most interesting magazines published in the 
United States.”—New York Herald Tribune. 

“A Magazine which should be followed by all who are 
intellectually curious and interested in America’s cultural ad- 
vance.” —Boston Transcript. 


A magazine devoted to the interpretation 
of Negro life and to inter-racial understand- 
‘ing. Its approach to the problems of life is 
along the approved, dispassionate path of so- 
cial research; its discussions of- industry, 
housing, health, crime, education, psychology, 
racial contacts, have beneath them the support 
of fact and authority, 

The articles are texts for classrooms as well 

_ as stimulating reading. More than 250 public 
libraries and over a hundred colleges and uni- | 
versities find it valuable for its material. 


‘OPPORTUNITY has from the beginning 
devoted itself to stimulating and fostering cre- 
ative self expression among young Negro 
writers and artists. Its contests have brought 
to the public stories, poetry and art which 
have commanded the respect and admiration 
of the world of letters. One of its prize 
stories was published in two anthologies of 
best short stories in the same year. Its rating 
for poetry and stories is unsurpassed by any 
journal of its class. _ 

The editorials have distinction. They are 
referred to by a professor of journalism at the 
University of California, Extension Division 
(Southern Branch) as “lucid, beautifully writ- 
ten, convincing,—among the finest examples 
of editorial style,” and used in his classes in 
journalism. 

More than any other journal interested in 
the problem of the Negro, OPPORTUNITY 
through its authoritative articles, editorials 
and reviews has become, from Maine to 
Texas, from Colorado to Mozambique, a sort 
of Alpha and Omega to those publicists, sci- 
entists, artists and sociologists who either 
write or speak on some of the multiple phases 
of Negro life and progress. 


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